Loudoun County students develop device to monitor data center runoff
Three Loudoun County high school students developed a sensor to monitor potential chemical runoff from data centers into nearby streams and rivers. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality is working with the students on testing, while state senators have proposed a moratorium on new data centers through 2030 until stronger environmental protections are established.
Three 16-year-old Loudoun County students—Adhvik Raj, Karthik Uppalapati and Priyanshu Kanhere—created a device to measure chemical levels in streams near Northern Virginia’s data center corridor. A Loudoun County grant funded the sensor, and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality plans to deploy it in local waterways, using a stream away from data centers as a comparison point.
The project comes as Democratic state Sens. Russet Perry and Danica Roem have pre-filed legislation that would pause new data center construction in Virginia from July 1 of next year through July 1, 2030. Perry said the moratorium would give the state time to establish stronger environmental safeguards, including measures addressing possible runoff from data center cooling agents.