The Resolution We Need Most in 2026 Is One We've Had Since 2020

By Maurice Carter, Co-Founder & President

This time of year, thoughts turn naturally to what to make of the new year ahead.  But perhaps I'm not the only one still struggling with what to make of the year just passed?  Has it really even passed?

It's been a tough 12 months for those of us committed to forging concern about the climate crisis into productive climate action.  It's not that we aren't making progress -- the trend lines and momentum on the clean energy transition are extremely positive.  But across the climate movement, we've been buffeted and battered by political headwinds emanating from Washington, DC, making every ounce of progress hard-earned.

Yet, I have faith the market advantages of clean energy (faster & cheaper than fossil fuels) and electric vehicles (beloved by their owners) will prevail.  Where our future feels less certain and our anxiety most intense is locally -- where a proliferation of data center projects stand poised to erase much of the progress our state and local community have made on improving air quality, reducing climate pollution, conserving water, and controlling growth.  The energy, water, and land demands of explosive AI data center growth are one of the biggest issues of our time, and we can't simply turn the page to a clean start.  Indeed, we've spent the closing days of 2025 joining other concerned organizations to inject some reasonableness into data center plans, while our Environmental Hazards Committee is working to surface all of the potential projects and assess the community risks of each.

All of this has me thinking not about new resolutions for 2026, but instead about an old resolution adopted -- but never fully operationalized -- by the Covington City Council for Earth Day in April of 2020.  First a little background, and then I'll explain the connection to our current data center crossroads in Covington and Newton County...

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Then Covington City Manager Scott Andrews asked Sustainable Newton to draft an Earth Day resolution for the mayor and council to read and adopt at their April 20, 2020 council meeting.  Rather than focus narrowly on a handful of tangible, immediate actions -- recycle more, save energy, etc. -- we crafted a statement to capture the essence of sustainability in a way that could guide the council through any opportunities and challenges that might arise.

We were inspired by our own vision to "build a world where people and planet are as important as profit and future generation matter."

With all the appropriate "whereases," we sought to connect Covington's past to our present and future, arriving at a statement we hoped the councilmembers, mayor, and staff would embrace.  The first two bullet points below are key and should provide clarity today as the council and other local government agencies grapple with the demands of AI data centers.  The resolution unanimously adopted by the Covington City Council on April 20, 2020 said:

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, the Mayor and City Council of the City of Covington commit to making sustainability a core consideration in how we operate by taking the following steps:

• Applying a decision-making process that explicitly examines economic, social, and environmental implications of actions taken by the Mayor and City Council.
• Proactively recognizing conflicting economic, social, and environmental interests in those decisions and striving to manage tradeoffs between those interests in a way that maintains long-term balance for the good of all current citizens and with consideration for impacts to future generations of citizens.

Money Matters -- But So Do People, Planet, and Future Generations

Let's be very clear on this point:  We've never said "ignore the economics."  But we are saying financial gain or loss alone is not an adequate measure of impact.  Profit is not the only goal of any human enterprise.  Taking our inspiration from the "Triple Bottom Line," we call for a balancing of economic gain or loss with the impacts on society (the people) and environment (the planet).  And that balance must extend beyond just thinking about current day impacts to considering how future generations will be affected.

We're also pragmatic realists.  In any situation, interests often conflict.  What's critical is making explicit compromises that are recognized, documented, and balanced in the long-run by offsetting actions to preserve all of the objectives.

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It's a Data Center and a Power Plant!

A prime opportunity to apply the principles of that 2020 resolution is the data center planned for an existing 498,960-square-foot warehouse building at 10835 Hazelbrand Road in Covington.  The 97-acre site was annexed into the City of Covington by a 5-1 vote of the city council in January 2025 at the request of the developer, Serverfarm.

What makes this project unique in Georgia are plans to go live generating baseload electricity with gas-fired reciprocating internal combustion engines, rather than a connection to an electric utility.  To protect their 24x7 operations, all data centers have some sort of diesel or gasoline backup generators on-site to insure against loss of power.  But Serverfarm has contracted with a Houston-based energy company, VoltaGrid to provide baseload power with methane gas engines running 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  VoltaGrid has applied to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD) Air Branch for a permit to operate the following:

• 33 Jenbacher J620 natural gas-fired, four-stroke lean-burn, reciprocating internal combustion engines;
• two Mesa Solutions natural gas-fired fuel gas heaters;
• one Algas natural gas-fired black start emergency engine generator;
• and five Caterpillar temporary engines.

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At peak operation the maximum power output of the fleet would be 90 megawatts of electricity, which is enough to power roughly 67,500 homes.  In that January 2025 council meeting, Serverfarm representative, Josh Volk told council members the facility will use “about as much [gas] as you can pump through the existing pipes — in fact, upgrades will be required." Volk said the gas would be used for "a number of years," until Georgia Power can develop a substation to serve the site.  Later, in a September council meeting where the gas contract was approved, City of Covington Gas Director Mike Jewell said the additional gas consumption by Serverfarm "will pull our system operating pressure down significantly for a couple of months during peak demand."

No data center or other type of facility in Georgia has ever been permitted for onsite generation of baseload power.  But, similar projects are creating controversy in other states.  One of those making headlines and attracting lawsuits is Elon Musk's xAI Data Center in Memphis, TN, which originally employed 35 unpermitted temporary gas turbines for power.  Activists and health officials have documented the health impacts suffered by residents living near the supercomputing complex the company calls "Colossus."

Sustainable Newton is concerned about the potential for similar health impacts on Covington and Newton County residents if the VoltaGrid project is permitted to continue as proposed, so we recently joined the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) and Altamaha Riverkeeper in filing public comments regarding the VoltaGrid permit application.

In a newly released fact sheet, on "Protecting Our Environment in the Digital Age," SELC states the following:

Data centers are an integral part of our modern economy but consume vast amounts of energy, water, and land. SELC is working to ensure that data centers undergo a fair and transparent review and permitting process, rely on clean energy sources, pay their fair share for energy and water to protect consumers from rate hikes, and do the least amount of harm possible, including by limiting air pollution and water consumption and pollution.

At Sustainable Newton, we agree and will continue working with allies to ensure the fairness, transparency, and protection citizens of Covington and Newton County deserve.  We also believe the Covington City Council and other local government agencies should do the same.

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The Money Is Huge, but So Are Impacts to Health & Wellbeing

With so many players profiting, who will look out for the interests of the people who live here and the planet we live on?

• Serverfarm profits by building and operating AI-ready data centers across North America, Europe, and the Middle East. Their clients for the Covington site have not been identified.
• VoltaGrid makes money by providing turnkey power solutions to clients like data centers.
• The City of Covington generates additional revenue by selling gas to industrial customers like Serverfarm and Voltagrid.

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But what about the rest of the balance sheet -- the Triple Bottom Line?  What is the cost to the community in terms of public health and environmental harm?

From the AJC article cited earlier:

Joe Bozeman III, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering at Georgia Tech, said the facility will generate cleaner electricity than a coal-fired power plant. Still, burning natural gas produces carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas responsible for global warming. Extracting and transporting natural gas also releases methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas that’s heating up the planet.  “I would not categorize this as a clean energy source,” Bozeman said.

And later, from the same article:

VoltaGrid’s air permit application says each RICE unit features a “built-in combustion exhaust treatment system,” but the company’s modeling shows the emissions will still contain compounds that could pose health hazards.
Those include a class of ultrafine particle pollution called PM 2.5, which has been linked to a range of cardiovascular and respiratory problems. The units will also release nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds, two known contributors to ground-level ozone, an air pollutant that can trigger breathing problems, especially in people with asthma, children and the elderly.

The entire point of the resolution the city council adopted in April 2020 is that the financial cost/benefit of any major decision must be examined within the context of equal consideration for impacts on people and planet.  This is where the municipal utility model gets complicated.  As a business selling gas (or electricity or water), the City of Covington has a vested interest to maximize sales to drive more revenue.  But, as a body charged with serving and protecting the public, the mayor, council, and city staff also have an obligation to act in the best interest of current and future citizens.

Another Example Shows How This Could Work

In its December 15 meeting, the Covington City Council approved four agreements with Amazon Data Services that will have the tech giant fund $100M for construction of an on-site wastewater reuse treatment plant for Amazon's Alcovy Road data center.  The treatment plant is similar to one managed by the Newton County Water & Sewerage Authority to serve industrial users in the Stanton Springs Business Park.  The authority will collaborate with the city and Amazon on this project as well. According to Covington City Attorney Frank Turner Jr, the treatment plant and other agreements with Amazon "will keep them completely off of our potable water supply, other than what their water needs are for their domestic consumption requirements.”

Water consumption and electricity demand are the top two concerns data centers pose for local communities.  It's easy to understand clean drinking water as a finite resource, the impacts of electricity demand are more varied.  In most cases, the data center operators look to the electric utility company to supply power, in which case the concerns are how that load affects grid stability and electricity prices for existing customers.  In the earlier example with Serverfarm/Voltagrid, they intend to generate their own electricity, in which case our local concerns become issues of air quality and public health.  And, whether power is supplied by the utility company or generated onsite, the use of fossil fuels generates more planet-warming climate pollution that exacerbates climate change.

It's not clear yet how the Amazon data center will be powered -- and that will likely raise additional concerns to be addressed.  But we commend the City of Covington and Amazon for working to find innovative water solutions funded by the data center developer, just as we commend the Newton County Water & Sewerage Authority, Meta, and other customers in Stanton Springs for their example of partnering to lower water usage there too.

What we need from those same players, now, is to see that same level of transparency, proactivity, and collaboration applied to powering data centers in our community with methods that don't cause public health or environmental issues.  It is imperative that local and state officials not jeopardize people and planet for the sake of profit.