Residents of Coweta County, Georgia, are gathering signatures to force a referendum on a massive datacenter project, hoping to inspire other communities pushing back against the rapid expansion of such facilities across the United States.
Grassroots Effort Gains Momentum
On a recent Sunday afternoon, hundreds of people braved a post-church downpour to sign a petition at Morgan's Market. The goal: give residents a vote on Project Sail, an 831-acre datacenter, and block future datacenters and cryptocurrency mining operations. Organizers reported collecting about 6,500 signatures as of Friday, aiming for roughly 14,000—a threshold that would trigger a countywide referendum.
Coweta County, home to about 160,000 residents and located less than an hour southwest of Atlanta, could become only the third county in Georgia history to hold such a referendum. Two-thirds of the county voted for Donald Trump in the last election.
Growing Opposition Nationwide
The effort is part of a broader wave of grassroots opposition to datacenters, whose rapid growth—fueled by demand for artificial intelligence—has raised environmental and quality-of-life concerns. Earlier this month, Monterey Park, California, became the first U.S. city to pass a referendum against datacenters. Recent polling indicates that seven in 10 Americans would oppose a datacenter near their homes.
Melanie Tomlinson, a 58-year-old lifelong resident and organizer with Citizens for Rural Coweta, said she never expected to be involved in local politics. After more than a year of county commission meetings on the issue, attendance swelled from fewer than a dozen to over a hundred. In December, the commission passed an ordinance she felt ignored community concerns about noise, water use, and electricity costs. “It was like a brick wall,” she said. The referendum plan emerged shortly after, and locals also filed a lawsuit to block Project Sail.
Legal and Historical Context
Georgia's constitution allows referendums when a certain percentage of registered voters sign a petition. The threshold varies by county population. Quentin Savwoir of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center said such tools show “people don’t have to acquiesce to elected leaders—particularly when they don’t have people’s interests at heart.”
Volunteer Jenn Riggs, a 41-year-old graphic designer living two miles from the Project Sail site, said she felt the county commission overlooked constituents. “I don’t feel like we’re trying to be radical,” she said. “We’re trying to be heard.” She noted the county rezoned the site from “rural conservation” to “industrial,” raising concerns about bald eagles, groundwater, and night skies.
Environmental and Community Concerns
Chris Manganiello, water policy director for Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, identified sediment runoff from construction as the “largest threat” to nearby rivers. The Guardian contacted each of the county’s five commissioners; spokesperson Cathy Wickey responded that “every perspective contributes to the dialog” and that the commission serves the entire community. Prologis, the developer behind Project Sail, did not respond to a query.
Signers of the petition expressed a range of concerns. John Leseur, a 25-year resident, said, “These datacenter people, these billionaires, they prey on small, rural towns, with loose zoning laws.” Others cited reports from Fayetteville, Georgia, where a datacenter developer received 30 million gallons of water without charge, leading to low water pressure for residents.
Carla Jackson moved to Coweta County from Loudoun County, Virginia—known as “Datacenter Alley”—to escape datacenter proliferation. “When I came here, I said: ‘This is it—paradise,’” she said. “If one datacenter comes here, that’s not going to be the end of it.” At least five datacenters are planned for the county. Jackson, who had never organized before, has trained 38 volunteers and gathered signatures everywhere she goes.
Unprecedented Opposition
Manganiello said he has never seen grassroots opposition like this to datacenters. “Everything about datacenters in Georgia is unprecedented,” he said, noting that rural counties are also passing moratoria on construction. “This sentiment is not going away.”
Tomlinson hopes Coweta County’s efforts inspire other communities. “I hope that other places see [what Coweta County is doing] and care as much as we care,” she said. “I hope it makes them brave, to stand up and do something.”
