Spartanburg Co. residents say they were misled about data center project

Residents in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, are expressing outrage and a sense of deception regarding a data center project operated by NorthMark Strategies. The project, initially introduced last year as "Project MOC-1" and described by former County Councilman David Britt as a "high-performance computing center," is now explicitly called a data center on NorthMark Strategies' website and is already under construction. Resident Nancy Garner, who lives near the site, voiced her anger, stating, "I feel totally deceived by the County Council, David Britt, anyone that supported that data center in the middle of the neighborhood." Concerns have escalated further after residents learned NorthMark Strategies requested to significantly increase its on-site power generation capacity. The South Carolina Department of Environmental Services confirmed the request, which was filed in March. The Southern Environmental Law Center, which raised concerns about potential air pollution last year, now states these concerns are growing given the uncertainty surrounding the project's true nature and scale. NorthMark Strategies, however, maintains it has done nothing wrong and claims the facility will not impact the power grid, stating plans to voluntarily implement continuous emissions monitoring.