November 21, 2025 • 21 mins
A proposed 580-acre hyperscale data center—one of the largest in the United States—has ignited a battle in New Castle County. In this episode, host Greg Boulden sits down with County Councilman Kevin Caneco to break down the truth behind Project Washington, an 11-building, 6-million-square-foot complex backed by Starwood Digital that could consume 1.2 gigawatts of power—twice the electricity used by every home in Delaware combined.
Together, they explore the issues Delawareans are urgently raising:
• How would the grid handle a load this massive?
• Could local residents face rising electric bills and long-term environmental costs?
• Are wetlands, water resources, and air quality at risk?
• What can be learned from Arizona, Oregon, Iowa, and Northern Virginia, where data center booms have already reshaped communities?
• And most importantly—are the guardrails in place to protect families, homes, and health?
Councilman Caneco shares an insider view of the ordinance battle, the amendments that nearly gutted protections, and the political pressures at play. This is the conversation Delaware residents have been waiting for—clear, direct, and unfiltered.
If you care about the future of Delaware’s energy, environment, and neighborhoods, this episode is essential listening.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Coming out of the gate, steppinginto the truth walk in the land
of the brain. Return back with a new hue.
Shadows danced on the wall. They told tales of deceit.
Once we hear the call, the lightand dark must compete.
(00:30):
Be bold, be bold unfolded, the story unfolds.
Be bold, be bold until the truthhas been told.
Be bold, be bold. Good evening Bold Americans.
(01:05):
Greg Bolden here from America and Bolden.
Be bold with Bolden. Haven't done one of these in a
while. You guys have been asking for
this show and I have not done it.
It's been sticking to the national headlines, but many
Delawareans have asked me to cover the data center.
So tonight we're going to be joined by Newcastle County
Councilman Kevin Keneko to discuss Project Washington.
(01:27):
Now this is a proposed hyper scale data center campus and I
believe that it would fundamentally reshape not just
the landscape of Delaware City where it's proposed just outside
of there, but also Newcastle County.
This project that you can look up is backed by Starwood
Digital. It spans 580 acres of land, 11
(01:51):
enormous data center buildings totalling over 6,000,000 square
feet, which would make it one ofthe largest data center
complexes in the entire United States.
That's right, just in this little tiny, already packed area
of New Castle County, Delaware. Now, what residents have been
emailing me to cover and has alarmed them is the
(02:14):
unprecedented scale of energy and resources that this project
would consume. Project Washington is projected
to require up to 1.2 gigawatts of electricity.
That's roughly double the power used by every household in
Delaware combined. Now that raises some serious
questions about grid stability, rising electricity costs, which
(02:35):
have been happening in Delaware and beyond, and whether Public
Utilities will need to rely moreon heavily on the fossil fuel
generation that keep up with thedemand.
And beyond the power grid, people are looking at what has
happened in other states. You guys have written to me
about Arizona, for example. It's now treating water almost
as an endangered resource after years of hyper skills, data
center expansions and millions of gallons of day that have been
(03:00):
diverted to server cooling in a region already suffering severe
drought. Similar problems have unfolded
Oregon, Iowa, Northern Virginia,where data centers have caused
higher electric rates around substations.
They triggered air quality violations, diesel backup
generators. They transformed quiet
residential or rural areas into industrial zones operating 24/7.
(03:21):
So the residents near this proposed Delaware site fear the
same trajectory. Despite some promises that this
was going to use an intercooling, there's still
millions of gallons of water that could be possibly used.
There's noise pollution from generators, cooling towers,
increased diesel admissions, round the clock, construction,
traffic light pollution, wetlanddisruption, and major possible
property value impacts. Now many also worry about the
(03:45):
precedent that once a hyper scale facility is approved, more
may follow, overwhelming the local communities here in
Delaware and beyond and the infrastructure as they have.
And at the county level, the council is currently debating a
new ordinance that would impose rules on data centers of this
size. This includes setbacks, noise
limits, water use standards and backup power requirements.
(04:06):
Some council members want retroactive rules that would
apply to Project Washington, while others warn that this
could jeopardize jobs or expose the county to legal challenges.
It's almost as if some people are putting profits over
resources and people. Well, Councilman Kevin Coneco
has been directly involved in assessing these questions and
evaluating what protections the county must put in place before
(04:28):
allowing a project with this level of long term impact.
So we have Kevin joining us now.And Councilman, thank you for
joining us here today to help the public understand what is
really at stake. So, Kevin, welcome.
Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you.
And I, I appreciate you bringingthis up.
It's, we got some very important, you know, stuff
coming up here with dealing withsubstitute 2225-101, which is
(04:54):
the main ordinance we're trying to get here passed.
And the reason we're trying to think is passed is I, I
represent Delaware City, I represent the area around that.
What we're trying to do is put reasonable regulations with
buffering, with sound noise, with all those important key
things we need to get in there without sucking the river dry
(05:16):
and without taking the wetlands around new, you know, Delaware
City without ensuring that our electricity bills don't go up by
hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
I mean, there's lots of things we're working on.
You just don't build a 6,000,000square foot warehouse in our
backyard anywhere in this state and not us have, you know, very
(05:40):
important questions about makingsure that's going to be done
correctly. And right now we see this, you
know, Starwood Ventures is a private equity firm, and it
seems like they're just trying to get it done.
That seems to be the case a lot in Delaware.
I mean, I personally, I put in solar panels.
I was really disappointed in what our people in Dover did by
(06:01):
basically charging me a premium later on and the unintended
consequences of getting renewable energy from Ohio and
the way the electric bills have gone up.
And I think when we rush these type of things forward, we often
times don't know what are the unintended consequences.
You know, So I really, the reason I'm bringing you on is
I've appreciated the fact that you're going, hey, wait a
minute, can we do this responsibly if this is going to
(06:21):
happen? So I'm just going to ask some
straightforward questions here. I got just several questions.
Going to be a quick hitting interview tonight.
What is your overall position onProject Washington at this stage
and what are the main concerns and what are the benefits do you
feel stand out for Delawareans as a whole?
Well, it's a, it's a right now. I mean, I, I know people say,
(06:43):
oh, politicians don't want to answer questions, but as the
district Councilman in a district like this, what happens
is when this go, this whole process goes through review,
right? I have to be quote UN quote,
fully informed of anything before I take a vote.
Because if I took a vote and I said yes or nay prior to getting
quote, UN quote all the information, it can open us up
(07:04):
to a lawsuit. I know that's a lot of legal
mumbo jumbo, but right now I'm being, I'm not taking a position
on Project Washington in general.
I am taking a position on Ordinance 25-101, which puts
regulations in place for any, you know, more data centers they
might want to build to make surethat we have guardrails in place
(07:27):
to protect the public. But are you able to comment on
what are your concerns or benefits about that directly?
Yeah. So our major concerns are
environmental concerns. There's a lot of environmental,
you know, impacts that are clearly associated energy use,
water use, noise that affects people's sleep patterns.
(07:51):
There's there's low level frequency that other counties
have realized and we have to really look into that.
Also we're building a 11 to 12 building structures on a
northern and southern parcel that guess what everything I
read I mean 60 minutes I think Grant a few things about this is
(08:12):
AI is consistently changing so some of these major data centers
not may not be useful in five years Now what do we do with
this entire structure we built right.
We want to make sure that developers who, if they're going
to put their on there, if they're, they're paying
decommission them right, 'cause we don't be stuck with these,
these just concrete cases aroundit.
(08:37):
So there's a lot we have to lookat and you know, on the on the
on the positive, if you know, ifthis was to go through, you
know, I mean, we did there was athere's an agreement in place
apparently with building trades to have Delaware labour build
this. I mean, listen, if it happens,
it happens, but it's not conditioned on me and whether
how I vote on it. And that that's not even, you
(08:57):
know, yes. Would it produce jobs in order
to create this facility? Absolutely.
Would those jobs be sustainable long term?
No. It's a spike in job creation on
a short term for a long term facility that doesn't need a ton
of jobs. Data centers don't require a ton
of people in order to man them. As we look across the country,
the County Council delayed this vote on these new regulations.
(09:17):
What exactly was debated? Can you give us the Cliff notes
and what does the Council need to resolve before they take a
vote? Well, basically what happened
was Councilwoman Kilpatrick introduced a bunch of very
hostile amendments that would have gutted this bill.
I mean, that's what it boils down to.
And there was trying to do a last minute move funded by land
(09:38):
use attorneys in Newcastle County representing data centers
to gut this bill with wording that didn't make sense.
And to be honest, Greg, me, Councilman Carter, we didn't
know if we had the votes. We didn't know if we didn't have
the votes in the County Council.There's 13 votes.
You need 7. We were six or five.
(09:58):
We didn't know. And we said after she introduced
all this legislation, there weresome people that were saying
comments made me feel very, are they going to vote for us or
not? So what we decided to do is say
let's table this, let's take twomore weeks.
So we're going to have conversations with the unions,
(10:19):
with the folks who want to kill this bill for whatever reason it
is. We'll have conversations,
Chamber of Commerce, we'll have conversations with all these
folks. But the intent is to get it over
the finish line. And you know, at the end of the
day, 2 week delays, I think of just everyone take a breather
and let's think about it. The project when I was saying at
(10:41):
the top of the show, and if you can't comment on some of these
things that you kind of alluded to, feel free to say rather not
comment at that time. I, I normally, you know, I'm not
an I got you type of person. So that's not what any of these
questions are. The project I, I mentioned it's
a, a 1.2 gigahertz project, right?
That is twice the electricity used by every home.
If you add them up here in Delaware, not just the county,
(11:01):
did the county ever receive to counsel a credible plan for how
the grid would support that load?
Is that anything that's ever come across your desk?
No, the county has received fromdeveloper essentially that they
will not have a second power generation or an on site power
(11:21):
generation and they they'd be onthe grid.
They've been very transparent about that.
Yeah, that. That's, that's highly concerning
to me, but I, you know, I, I, I'm not going to give my opinion
on this tonight. I'm just asking questions.
The next part I wanted to ask is, so I was looking at this on
a map. There's residential areas just
about, you know, thousands of feet away.
(11:41):
They're worried about noise, traffic.
These are the emails that I'm getting.
I know they contacted me and Rick Jensen because I was
actually copied on a few at the same.
And I was like, oh, look, they're contacting Rick too.
Do you view these concerns of individuals as legitimate from
what you've been getting from your constituents?
For for as in prices of of the of electricity or.
(12:04):
The noise, the traffic, the industrialization of
neighborhoods, do you think thatthat's that's someone that you
know, it's a good concern that they have?
I do absolutely. I mean, and there are lots of
concerns and we've been talking about it, I mean through people
in Delaware City, we had a sat through a multiple hour public
meeting with folks who brought up those concerns about how this
could, how these residual effects could happen.
(12:26):
And like I said, there have beensome counties in some states
that we've studied around the country that when counties
didn't put in good regulation, the data centers just built
whatever they wanted to build. And it had it's, these are
different buildings. They take so much more water, so
much more energy, so much more noise.
(12:47):
It's not like just putting up a,a lows.
I mean it, it is a completely different East.
Yeah, I'm, I'm concerned that the majority of Delawareans and
even our elected officials just don't understand and the true
scale of what's being asked to be built on this parcel of land.
Do you believe that the environmental studies so far
(13:10):
gave a realistic picture of the risk to wetlands, the water
usage, and the diesel generator emissions?
Because I know what with what you're trying to put forth,
you're trying to protect Delawareans from that.
But do you think that the environmental studies have
already given you a strong enough base to try to get these
votes? I mean, I think they have been
working with folks in in your environmental groups here in
(13:33):
Delaware to talk about this stuff.
But you know, they have to, you know, there's some members that
I and our council, unfortunately, and I'm sorry to
say it, and I'll say it with full transparency.
I, I, I don't think they give a damn about it in the
environment. I, I mean, I'm sorry.
I, they, they're, they're, they just don't care enough about the
(13:57):
future because they feel that, well, we lived in this
environment, we're good with this environment.
They, it's, it's this old schoolway of thinking like, can we not
improve? Can we not get better?
Can we not strive to make our government better to make sure
that people aren't dying of cancer in Delaware in their 60s
(14:18):
and 70s because of all the chemical munitions that happened
in this state? I can we, can we just be better
about that? I don't know.
Yeah, I'd agree. I mean, there's a person just
wrote a question and I I think this is something that's a hard
hitting question, but I'm going to ask you this.
I'm going to try to rephrase it to make it gentler than what
(14:39):
somebody just wrote. They want to know if you would
feel a personal responsibility since you're involved in this if
children in the future District 12 developed asthma, other
illnesses because it's closer than 3000 feet to homes.
Or do you think that I'm not saying you but others as well
and voting for this are looking more at the economic development
(15:02):
of Delaware because we see this writer comes in from Virginia.
They said the data center alley and Memphis's XAI facility.
They've seen this increase in children.
And so is that anything you've heard about and will that go
into some of your decisions? Yeah.
No, it's an absolutely fair question and it's a good
question. And to be honest, yes, part of
(15:24):
what our ordinance does is buildthe buffering lines out bigger
than right now the code allows to ensure that residential homes
are not close to these data centers because we've learned
from other counties and other States and Northern Virginia is
the hub of data centers that youneed these buffering
(15:45):
requirements because data centers next to residential
homes doesn't seem to be a good mix.
So I'm working on moving the distance as big as I can.
And you know, I appreciate that the, the, the question.
And what I would say is, listen,I'm trying to move the buffer as
far as I can and also get something passed because right
(16:09):
now under code, I think a data center essentially could build
something 500 feet away from a home.
So in the word of in the word oflegislators, A70 or an 80%
product is sometimes better than100% product.
But I agree with you and sentiment in spirit that I'm
trying to get these as far removed from homes as I can.
(16:30):
I appreciate that. I'm sure the person that that
asked the question, although they don't live in Delaware,
they appreciates too. So I said I'm doing a Delaware
focused show tonight, but my I have a national audience.
So it's interesting to see the comments I'm getting through the
other platforms, people commenting in about their
impacts and I'll be happy to share those with you, Kevin, off
the air because I know we you have to get to another interview
tonight. So we got to end this in a few
(16:52):
moments. I'm just going to ask you one
final question. Appreciate your time.
Would love you to come back on the national show sometime.
We can talk global issues or whatever you'd like to.
But what should residents expectas basically the the next major
step from County Council? You mentioned in two weeks you
hope to reconvene Perfect world here.
(17:13):
So we wrap up 2025. What are the next steps forward
to safeguarding health and prosperity for all?
So yeah, we'll be working over the next two weeks dealing with
all the stakeholders here in at least in Delaware on ensuring
that there are safeguards and we're not going to, we're not
going to back off this, I'm sorry.
(17:33):
And there are some very heavy funded business interests.
I've been coming at me, coming at, you know, Councilman Carter,
coming at other people. And we're we're not yielding and
we're going to, we're going to stay strong on this to make
sure. So we'll have some negotiations
of next couple weeks. We'll we'll reconvene again in
December. And I'll tell you now if, if
(17:56):
they think they're going to killthis bill, that's not going to
happen because we'll bring it toa vote.
And I'll tell you this, Greg, you know what you put on the
floor? You do yes or no, and then
everybody will know who's yes and everybody who will know
who's no, and that will backfireon the people that try to vote
against this type of legislation.
Well, people like myself that dothe investigative journalism
would love to see the yes's and Nos because I can always follow
(18:18):
the finances and my extensive network of people that are
always all too happy. Kevin, that's give me a lot of
back info and inside info. So, you know, if we do run into
that problem down the road, and I'd be happy to expose the
conflict of interest, Never, never afraid of doing that.
Kevin, appreciate the time here.I know you're going to be on
another show here this evening with Reclaimed Ground Media,
(18:42):
which I normally don't do teasers for other shows, but I'm
actually helping produce their show.
So I feel like I need to. So there's going to be a much
larger segment. But Kevin and I already had this
set up and I didn't want to stopthe conversation.
But Kevin, you're welcome back on the American Bolton Network.
Anytime you got something you want to talk about, I'd love to
keep in touch with you. And as somebody who lives just
(19:02):
down the road from Delaware City, just off the Saint
George's 100 area, thank you forbattling to make sure that
there's these safeguards. You know, it's, it's awesome
when I can see that there are people that we may not agree on
all political issues, but if we all want what's best for our
children, our families, and thisis where these type of issues,
they really transcend any political ideologies we may
(19:24):
have. It's all about making this a
better place for our children inthe future.
So, Kevin, thank you so much. Look forward to keeping in touch
with you and have a great rest of your evening.
Absolutely, Greg and I appreciate all you do and you
know, speaking out and you you're you're an honest truth
speaker. And like you said, we don't have
to agree on everything. But listen, people who are have
common sense and I think that that me and you can get a lot
(19:46):
done. So I appreciate it.
Thank you all. Right.
Thank you. All right, Bold Americans.
That's it. That's all for tonight.
I got to get run and get ready to produce another show.
You can check out Reclaimed Ground Media on Facebook.
The American Bolden Network is actually producing their podcast
content. They have two lovely, amazing
people that are kind of at the spearheading of this.
(20:06):
Brian Shoop and Kate Lyszynski, phenomenal humans that have
started this entire thing. Just partnered with them about
72 hours ago. Want to hear the new music I was
working on for their show Playing guitar?
Playing some keyboards, you'll hear that in just about 6
minutes. So TuneIn at 7:00 PM everybody
for that you can follow them on reclaimed ground media on
(20:28):
Facebook and your social media companies.
More common, you can find it right here in American Boldened
as well. Take everybody.
Be bold.
Coming out of the gate, steppinginto the truth walk in the land
of the brain. Return back with a new hue.
Shadows danced on the wall. They told tales of deceit.
Once we hear the call, the lightand dark must compete.
(00:30):
Be bold, be bold unfolded, the story unfolds.
Be bold, be bold until the truthhas been told.
Be bold, be bold. Good evening Bold Americans.
(01:05):
Greg Bolden here from America and Bolden.
Be bold with Bolden. Haven't done one of these in a
while. You guys have been asking for
this show and I have not done it.
It's been sticking to the national headlines, but many
Delawareans have asked me to cover the data center.
So tonight we're going to be joined by Newcastle County
Councilman Kevin Keneko to discuss Project Washington.
(01:27):
Now this is a proposed hyper scale data center campus and I
believe that it would fundamentally reshape not just
the landscape of Delaware City where it's proposed just outside
of there, but also Newcastle County.
This project that you can look up is backed by Starwood
Digital. It spans 580 acres of land, 11
(01:51):
enormous data center buildings totalling over 6,000,000 square
feet, which would make it one ofthe largest data center
complexes in the entire United States.
That's right, just in this little tiny, already packed area
of New Castle County, Delaware. Now, what residents have been
emailing me to cover and has alarmed them is the
(02:14):
unprecedented scale of energy and resources that this project
would consume. Project Washington is projected
to require up to 1.2 gigawatts of electricity.
That's roughly double the power used by every household in
Delaware combined. Now that raises some serious
questions about grid stability, rising electricity costs, which
(02:35):
have been happening in Delaware and beyond, and whether Public
Utilities will need to rely moreon heavily on the fossil fuel
generation that keep up with thedemand.
And beyond the power grid, people are looking at what has
happened in other states. You guys have written to me
about Arizona, for example. It's now treating water almost
as an endangered resource after years of hyper skills, data
center expansions and millions of gallons of day that have been
(03:00):
diverted to server cooling in a region already suffering severe
drought. Similar problems have unfolded
Oregon, Iowa, Northern Virginia,where data centers have caused
higher electric rates around substations.
They triggered air quality violations, diesel backup
generators. They transformed quiet
residential or rural areas into industrial zones operating 24/7.
(03:21):
So the residents near this proposed Delaware site fear the
same trajectory. Despite some promises that this
was going to use an intercooling, there's still
millions of gallons of water that could be possibly used.
There's noise pollution from generators, cooling towers,
increased diesel admissions, round the clock, construction,
traffic light pollution, wetlanddisruption, and major possible
property value impacts. Now many also worry about the
(03:45):
precedent that once a hyper scale facility is approved, more
may follow, overwhelming the local communities here in
Delaware and beyond and the infrastructure as they have.
And at the county level, the council is currently debating a
new ordinance that would impose rules on data centers of this
size. This includes setbacks, noise
limits, water use standards and backup power requirements.
(04:06):
Some council members want retroactive rules that would
apply to Project Washington, while others warn that this
could jeopardize jobs or expose the county to legal challenges.
It's almost as if some people are putting profits over
resources and people. Well, Councilman Kevin Coneco
has been directly involved in assessing these questions and
evaluating what protections the county must put in place before
(04:28):
allowing a project with this level of long term impact.
So we have Kevin joining us now.And Councilman, thank you for
joining us here today to help the public understand what is
really at stake. So, Kevin, welcome.
Yeah, no, absolutely. Thank you.
And I, I appreciate you bringingthis up.
It's, we got some very important, you know, stuff
coming up here with dealing withsubstitute 2225-101, which is
(04:54):
the main ordinance we're trying to get here passed.
And the reason we're trying to think is passed is I, I
represent Delaware City, I represent the area around that.
What we're trying to do is put reasonable regulations with
buffering, with sound noise, with all those important key
things we need to get in there without sucking the river dry
(05:16):
and without taking the wetlands around new, you know, Delaware
City without ensuring that our electricity bills don't go up by
hundreds and hundreds of dollars.
I mean, there's lots of things we're working on.
You just don't build a 6,000,000square foot warehouse in our
backyard anywhere in this state and not us have, you know, very
(05:40):
important questions about makingsure that's going to be done
correctly. And right now we see this, you
know, Starwood Ventures is a private equity firm, and it
seems like they're just trying to get it done.
That seems to be the case a lot in Delaware.
I mean, I personally, I put in solar panels.
I was really disappointed in what our people in Dover did by
(06:01):
basically charging me a premium later on and the unintended
consequences of getting renewable energy from Ohio and
the way the electric bills have gone up.
And I think when we rush these type of things forward, we often
times don't know what are the unintended consequences.
You know, So I really, the reason I'm bringing you on is
I've appreciated the fact that you're going, hey, wait a
minute, can we do this responsibly if this is going to
(06:21):
happen? So I'm just going to ask some
straightforward questions here. I got just several questions.
Going to be a quick hitting interview tonight.
What is your overall position onProject Washington at this stage
and what are the main concerns and what are the benefits do you
feel stand out for Delawareans as a whole?
Well, it's a, it's a right now. I mean, I, I know people say,
(06:43):
oh, politicians don't want to answer questions, but as the
district Councilman in a district like this, what happens
is when this go, this whole process goes through review,
right? I have to be quote UN quote,
fully informed of anything before I take a vote.
Because if I took a vote and I said yes or nay prior to getting
quote, UN quote all the information, it can open us up
(07:04):
to a lawsuit. I know that's a lot of legal
mumbo jumbo, but right now I'm being, I'm not taking a position
on Project Washington in general.
I am taking a position on Ordinance 25-101, which puts
regulations in place for any, you know, more data centers they
might want to build to make surethat we have guardrails in place
(07:27):
to protect the public. But are you able to comment on
what are your concerns or benefits about that directly?
Yeah. So our major concerns are
environmental concerns. There's a lot of environmental,
you know, impacts that are clearly associated energy use,
water use, noise that affects people's sleep patterns.
(07:51):
There's there's low level frequency that other counties
have realized and we have to really look into that.
Also we're building a 11 to 12 building structures on a
northern and southern parcel that guess what everything I
read I mean 60 minutes I think Grant a few things about this is
(08:12):
AI is consistently changing so some of these major data centers
not may not be useful in five years Now what do we do with
this entire structure we built right.
We want to make sure that developers who, if they're going
to put their on there, if they're, they're paying
decommission them right, 'cause we don't be stuck with these,
these just concrete cases aroundit.
(08:37):
So there's a lot we have to lookat and you know, on the on the
on the positive, if you know, ifthis was to go through, you
know, I mean, we did there was athere's an agreement in place
apparently with building trades to have Delaware labour build
this. I mean, listen, if it happens,
it happens, but it's not conditioned on me and whether
how I vote on it. And that that's not even, you
(08:57):
know, yes. Would it produce jobs in order
to create this facility? Absolutely.
Would those jobs be sustainable long term?
No. It's a spike in job creation on
a short term for a long term facility that doesn't need a ton
of jobs. Data centers don't require a ton
of people in order to man them. As we look across the country,
the County Council delayed this vote on these new regulations.
(09:17):
What exactly was debated? Can you give us the Cliff notes
and what does the Council need to resolve before they take a
vote? Well, basically what happened
was Councilwoman Kilpatrick introduced a bunch of very
hostile amendments that would have gutted this bill.
I mean, that's what it boils down to.
And there was trying to do a last minute move funded by land
(09:38):
use attorneys in Newcastle County representing data centers
to gut this bill with wording that didn't make sense.
And to be honest, Greg, me, Councilman Carter, we didn't
know if we had the votes. We didn't know if we didn't have
the votes in the County Council.There's 13 votes.
You need 7. We were six or five.
(09:58):
We didn't know. And we said after she introduced
all this legislation, there weresome people that were saying
comments made me feel very, are they going to vote for us or
not? So what we decided to do is say
let's table this, let's take twomore weeks.
So we're going to have conversations with the unions,
(10:19):
with the folks who want to kill this bill for whatever reason it
is. We'll have conversations,
Chamber of Commerce, we'll have conversations with all these
folks. But the intent is to get it over
the finish line. And you know, at the end of the
day, 2 week delays, I think of just everyone take a breather
and let's think about it. The project when I was saying at
(10:41):
the top of the show, and if you can't comment on some of these
things that you kind of alluded to, feel free to say rather not
comment at that time. I, I normally, you know, I'm not
an I got you type of person. So that's not what any of these
questions are. The project I, I mentioned it's
a, a 1.2 gigahertz project, right?
That is twice the electricity used by every home.
If you add them up here in Delaware, not just the county,
(11:01):
did the county ever receive to counsel a credible plan for how
the grid would support that load?
Is that anything that's ever come across your desk?
No, the county has received fromdeveloper essentially that they
will not have a second power generation or an on site power
(11:21):
generation and they they'd be onthe grid.
They've been very transparent about that.
Yeah, that. That's, that's highly concerning
to me, but I, you know, I, I, I'm not going to give my opinion
on this tonight. I'm just asking questions.
The next part I wanted to ask is, so I was looking at this on
a map. There's residential areas just
about, you know, thousands of feet away.
(11:41):
They're worried about noise, traffic.
These are the emails that I'm getting.
I know they contacted me and Rick Jensen because I was
actually copied on a few at the same.
And I was like, oh, look, they're contacting Rick too.
Do you view these concerns of individuals as legitimate from
what you've been getting from your constituents?
For for as in prices of of the of electricity or.
(12:04):
The noise, the traffic, the industrialization of
neighborhoods, do you think thatthat's that's someone that you
know, it's a good concern that they have?
I do absolutely. I mean, and there are lots of
concerns and we've been talking about it, I mean through people
in Delaware City, we had a sat through a multiple hour public
meeting with folks who brought up those concerns about how this
could, how these residual effects could happen.
(12:26):
And like I said, there have beensome counties in some states
that we've studied around the country that when counties
didn't put in good regulation, the data centers just built
whatever they wanted to build. And it had it's, these are
different buildings. They take so much more water, so
much more energy, so much more noise.
(12:47):
It's not like just putting up a,a lows.
I mean it, it is a completely different East.
Yeah, I'm, I'm concerned that the majority of Delawareans and
even our elected officials just don't understand and the true
scale of what's being asked to be built on this parcel of land.
Do you believe that the environmental studies so far
(13:10):
gave a realistic picture of the risk to wetlands, the water
usage, and the diesel generator emissions?
Because I know what with what you're trying to put forth,
you're trying to protect Delawareans from that.
But do you think that the environmental studies have
already given you a strong enough base to try to get these
votes? I mean, I think they have been
working with folks in in your environmental groups here in
(13:33):
Delaware to talk about this stuff.
But you know, they have to, you know, there's some members that
I and our council, unfortunately, and I'm sorry to
say it, and I'll say it with full transparency.
I, I, I don't think they give a damn about it in the
environment. I, I mean, I'm sorry.
I, they, they're, they're, they just don't care enough about the
(13:57):
future because they feel that, well, we lived in this
environment, we're good with this environment.
They, it's, it's this old schoolway of thinking like, can we not
improve? Can we not get better?
Can we not strive to make our government better to make sure
that people aren't dying of cancer in Delaware in their 60s
(14:18):
and 70s because of all the chemical munitions that happened
in this state? I can we, can we just be better
about that? I don't know.
Yeah, I'd agree. I mean, there's a person just
wrote a question and I I think this is something that's a hard
hitting question, but I'm going to ask you this.
I'm going to try to rephrase it to make it gentler than what
(14:39):
somebody just wrote. They want to know if you would
feel a personal responsibility since you're involved in this if
children in the future District 12 developed asthma, other
illnesses because it's closer than 3000 feet to homes.
Or do you think that I'm not saying you but others as well
and voting for this are looking more at the economic development
(15:02):
of Delaware because we see this writer comes in from Virginia.
They said the data center alley and Memphis's XAI facility.
They've seen this increase in children.
And so is that anything you've heard about and will that go
into some of your decisions? Yeah.
No, it's an absolutely fair question and it's a good
question. And to be honest, yes, part of
(15:24):
what our ordinance does is buildthe buffering lines out bigger
than right now the code allows to ensure that residential homes
are not close to these data centers because we've learned
from other counties and other States and Northern Virginia is
the hub of data centers that youneed these buffering
(15:45):
requirements because data centers next to residential
homes doesn't seem to be a good mix.
So I'm working on moving the distance as big as I can.
And you know, I appreciate that the, the, the question.
And what I would say is, listen,I'm trying to move the buffer as
far as I can and also get something passed because right
(16:09):
now under code, I think a data center essentially could build
something 500 feet away from a home.
So in the word of in the word oflegislators, A70 or an 80%
product is sometimes better than100% product.
But I agree with you and sentiment in spirit that I'm
trying to get these as far removed from homes as I can.
(16:30):
I appreciate that. I'm sure the person that that
asked the question, although they don't live in Delaware,
they appreciates too. So I said I'm doing a Delaware
focused show tonight, but my I have a national audience.
So it's interesting to see the comments I'm getting through the
other platforms, people commenting in about their
impacts and I'll be happy to share those with you, Kevin, off
the air because I know we you have to get to another interview
tonight. So we got to end this in a few
(16:52):
moments. I'm just going to ask you one
final question. Appreciate your time.
Would love you to come back on the national show sometime.
We can talk global issues or whatever you'd like to.
But what should residents expectas basically the the next major
step from County Council? You mentioned in two weeks you
hope to reconvene Perfect world here.
(17:13):
So we wrap up 2025. What are the next steps forward
to safeguarding health and prosperity for all?
So yeah, we'll be working over the next two weeks dealing with
all the stakeholders here in at least in Delaware on ensuring
that there are safeguards and we're not going to, we're not
going to back off this, I'm sorry.
(17:33):
And there are some very heavy funded business interests.
I've been coming at me, coming at, you know, Councilman Carter,
coming at other people. And we're we're not yielding and
we're going to, we're going to stay strong on this to make
sure. So we'll have some negotiations
of next couple weeks. We'll we'll reconvene again in
December. And I'll tell you now if, if
(17:56):
they think they're going to killthis bill, that's not going to
happen because we'll bring it toa vote.
And I'll tell you this, Greg, you know what you put on the
floor? You do yes or no, and then
everybody will know who's yes and everybody who will know
who's no, and that will backfireon the people that try to vote
against this type of legislation.
Well, people like myself that dothe investigative journalism
would love to see the yes's and Nos because I can always follow
(18:18):
the finances and my extensive network of people that are
always all too happy. Kevin, that's give me a lot of
back info and inside info. So, you know, if we do run into
that problem down the road, and I'd be happy to expose the
conflict of interest, Never, never afraid of doing that.
Kevin, appreciate the time here.I know you're going to be on
another show here this evening with Reclaimed Ground Media,
(18:42):
which I normally don't do teasers for other shows, but I'm
actually helping produce their show.
So I feel like I need to. So there's going to be a much
larger segment. But Kevin and I already had this
set up and I didn't want to stopthe conversation.
But Kevin, you're welcome back on the American Bolton Network.
Anytime you got something you want to talk about, I'd love to
keep in touch with you. And as somebody who lives just
(19:02):
down the road from Delaware City, just off the Saint
George's 100 area, thank you forbattling to make sure that
there's these safeguards. You know, it's, it's awesome
when I can see that there are people that we may not agree on
all political issues, but if we all want what's best for our
children, our families, and thisis where these type of issues,
they really transcend any political ideologies we may
(19:24):
have. It's all about making this a
better place for our children inthe future.
So, Kevin, thank you so much. Look forward to keeping in touch
with you and have a great rest of your evening.
Absolutely, Greg and I appreciate all you do and you
know, speaking out and you you're you're an honest truth
speaker. And like you said, we don't have
to agree on everything. But listen, people who are have
common sense and I think that that me and you can get a lot
(19:46):
done. So I appreciate it.
Thank you all. Right.
Thank you. All right, Bold Americans.
That's it. That's all for tonight.
I got to get run and get ready to produce another show.
You can check out Reclaimed Ground Media on Facebook.
The American Bolden Network is actually producing their podcast
content. They have two lovely, amazing
people that are kind of at the spearheading of this.
(20:06):
Brian Shoop and Kate Lyszynski, phenomenal humans that have
started this entire thing. Just partnered with them about
72 hours ago. Want to hear the new music I was
working on for their show Playing guitar?
Playing some keyboards, you'll hear that in just about 6
minutes. So TuneIn at 7:00 PM everybody
for that you can follow them on reclaimed ground media on
(20:28):
Facebook and your social media companies.
More common, you can find it right here in American Boldened
as well. Take everybody.
Be bold.
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