#(maryland)

[thesecretuncle]

Baltimore is a beacon of hope in the war against The Machines

[onlytiktoks]

[zadeemae]

Driving day and night

[honeyrosepetals]

[animentality]

[strigops]

this is extremely local and also a shot in the dark but if literally anyone on this site lives in frederick county, maryland i am begging you to sign the referendum to vote on the expansion of the data center in frederick. they have until march 15th to get 18,000 signatures, after which we can vote to slap that expansion right out of their hands if we're lucky. you will need to sign at one of their in-person signing events, but it will be worth it. unfortunately they've already started construction on the site, but we CAN deny them from destroying another 1000 acres of forest/wetlands, high value farmland, and rural legacy areas.

the data center is being built on the site of an old aluminum plant, and the area surrounding it has already undergone numerous investigations for soil and groundwater contamination containing PCE, arsenic, fluoride, and the cancer-causing compounds PAHs and PCBs. while the linked EPA report seems to conclude that the contaminants on the site are "residual", it is still very much an actual superfund site. and someone decided to plunk a data center on it. the factory closed in 2005 and they were still finding new waste storage areas up until 2014, and construction is going to churn up all of that soil. i don't know enough about how well those contaminants travel as airborne dust, but it WILL get into the groundwater again with extensive disturbance like that. the current owners are now responsible for any remediation and i frankly do not trust fucking meta to keep anything from leaching anywhere. the site is also quite literally on top of tuscarora creek, which is extremely close to and flows directly into the potomac (and considering the current shitwater horizon situation our poor river REALLY does not need any more issues).

as a final kick of irony, the plant the data center will be built on closed because it was using so much electricity that they could no longer afford power. now. does that seem like a great place to build a data center, which are famous for slurping down so much electricity that it raises everyone's electric bills in the entire surrounding area. what was the thought process here. how did this ever get approved. please if you can, sign that referendum to nuke this expansion from orbit.

[imnotcursed]