A straight middle finger': Prince William data center advisory group sounds off over noise ordinance

Inside NOVA ^ | 9/23/2025 | Sebastien Kraft

[fruser1]

Members of Prince William County’s Data Center Ordinance Advisory Group are sounding off on the county’s anticipated eleventh-hour changes to the group’s draft noise ordinance ahead of the Board of County Supervisors’ Oct. 14 work session.

The proposed noise-level rollbacks are designed to more seamlessly accommodate local business interests as the county looks to implement the new ordinance incrementally, members say.

“The noise ordinance has become an emotional touch point for some people and it's understandable. I have told data centers and other businesses that they need to be better neighbors – the noise ordinance was born out of the problems in the Great Oak community … ”

“The current noise ordinance effectively addresses intermittent noise sources commonly experienced in suburban communities. However, new industrial installations are increasingly being located near residential areas in PWC. The current noise ordinance limits may not be able to address this ‘steady tonal sound’ because of round-the-clock operation with near-constant sound levels and the potential for excessive low-frequency noise.”

In measuring continuous, low-frequency noise, the advisory group and county staff now utilize octave bands – in essence, frequencies that measure sound on one octave instead of using traditional decibel measurements.

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TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: datacenter

[fruser1]

The advisory board was pissed off that what made it into the ordinance were sound levels 6db higher than their recommendation.

I think noise and vibration are the primary problem remaining with data centers at this point.

If they use closed-loop cooling systems, there is no water problem.

Grid operators are well aware of diminishing generation capabilities (thanks to eco nazis) and more sharply increasing generation requirements (thanks to data centers). They are already working w/the Feds on the particulars of having data centers use their own generation facilities.

Hopefully, they address noise issues for power generation equipment as well if the facilities are close to neighborhoods.

[dangus]

I don’t get why noise has to be an issue. Seems like a simple architectural matter for something so large.

[Skwor]

The noise issue is easily solvable; sound isolation has been solved for a long time; the problem is it is very costly to do it right.

Sound isolating everything with the correct mounts and Anechoic insulation / structures is not cheap. So as usual it is about money and corporation will always try to cut those costs at the expense of the worker/ customer / neighbors.

[dangus]

Virginia should say: You can build your powerplant, but you have to have it run with on-site solar. That’ll provide a noise barrier, I should think.

[Da Coyote]

Virginia is demonstrably corrupt, as we all know. So, a corrupt set of city officials, those officials being DemocRAT, is a given. As also with Massachusets, VA is gone. Put a stick in it and cover it over with data centers that can supply we red states (that actually produce things) with data. Population? Don’t even know if they’re worth shipping out. Oh, we can make them work pedal machines connected to dynamos to run the data centers.

[chajin]

Prince William data center

I already had my daily double espresso, but my first thought was, "He has his own data center? What about Charles?"

I've been working lots of OT lately so I'm just harried.

[chajin]

Virginia should say: You can build your powerplant, but you have to have it run with on-site solar.

I would prefer one of the mini-reactors. Here in TX, however, that's a no-no, not because of anti-nuclear sentiment, but simply because we have more than enough fossil fuel to handle everything.

[ncalburt]

Massive turbines built cheaply with no noise controls and with Billionaire corporations that have no concern for the
community and walk all over the poor powerless local homeowners.
Its greed and unlimited funds to
bury these ungodly things in all these rural and suburban communities.

Please note these AI billionaire’s inly want poor and powerless rural areas and not urban area where the noise and ugly buildings would need to be upgraded.

I live in one such community and we fought back and the GOP primary wiped out all the gop crooks that okayed it .

The noise is so bad and it was ugly that the local homes are unsellable.
The new county folks plan to correct this mess.

[bert]

Please provide your first hand testimony as to what the noise actually sounds like, actually is.

I can’t grasp the problem

[Henry Hnyellar]

Interstate 95 runs through Prince William County, Virginia, for approximately 12 miles. I guess they don’t care about that noise.

[ncalburt]

Try the noise from 50 cooling turbines that sound like a
757 taking off all day long.

Try visiting a data center rather than making your usual uninformed Snarky posts.

There are now plenty of properties now sitting unsold all over the US.
Go ahead and invest in these unsellable homes.

[fruser1]

95

They do, that's why there's ~30ft tall sound barriers along it.

[bert]

So, the noise that is objectionable is emitted by the turbines in the power plants producing the electricity that runs the data centers. I don’t really know what a cooling turbine is

Thanks for that.

I was unable to understand how a ton of servers produced noise that could be heard outside the data center walls.

[fruser1]

emitted by the turbines in the power plants

No, he HVAC is the typical noise source as data centers do not currently have onsite power generation. The regulations are being worked for that.

When power generation occurs on site, it'd be additional noise.

There's a recording of one on facebook about a half mile away from one in NJ. Not my recording so I can't speak to veracity:

https://www.facebook.com/100064550777572/videos/1030315635996408/

[fruser1]

do not currently have onsite power generation

Correction - the only onsite generation today is for power backup when there is an outage.

[bert]

Got it.

Thanks

[Mr. K]

Data centers are just like any large building.

The media is portraying them as some evil entity.

It’s just ‘economies of scale’. As more computing power is needed bigger systems are needed.

There is a reason steel plants are so large and grocery stores are so small. This is just a natural outgrowth.

[alternatives?]

Is this an issue regarding Muslim’s call to prayer?

[DannyTN]

In Nashville, there is a data center proposed next to the zoo. And there is concern that the animals will be adversely affected by sounds emitted by the data center including frequencies outside of human hearing.

[goodnesswins]

A company stupid enough to build near houses deserves to be challenged. What county/city allowed that? Around here data centers are built in industrial areas, or in the middle of nowhere.