As Staci Hartwell sees it, her community has much more to lose than to gain from the development of a massive data center.
“I don’t think it needs to be in the heart of a community that is suffering from cumulative impacts, which just happens to be a predominantly Black and brown community,” said Hartwell, a resident of Prince George’s County, MD, and strategist for the South County Environmental Justice Coalition.
Lerner Enterprises, a real estate firm operated by the family that owns the Washington Nationals, has proposed a $5 billion, 4-million-square-foot data center complex on the site of the long-demolished Landover Mall. Those plans were put on hold last September, though, after County Executive Aisha Braveboy placed a temporary halt on processing data center permits…