This Monday night, the Colleton County Council is expected to give final reading on one of the potentially most consequential ordinances it could ever adopt, from an economic and environmental standpoint.
It is called a Digital Infrastructure Overlay zoning designation, and it will be applied to 300 acres near the Ruffin community. As of 12:30 p.m. Sunday, the ordinance was not on the county council website for public inspection, but a version of the ordinance was adopted by the county planning commission in early August. The agenda for this Monday’s 6 p.m. special called council meeting is posted (https://www.colletoncounty.org/sites/default/files/uploads/agendas/9-14-26-special-called-meeting.pdf).
Council gave unanimous approval to this ordinance on 2nd reading on the Friday evening of Labor Day Weekend.
This Monday’s Public Hearing will be at 5:30 p.m. at 109 Benson St. in Walterboro.
At the 2nd reading called meeting, 5 people spoke specifically about Data Centers (since the ordinance was on the agenda) in the 20 minutes allotted for Public Comments. Three people spoke about other topics, including thanking the council members and county staff for their service.
Public Comments addressed alleged misconceptions about Data Centers, the fact that 1 in 5 Colletonians live below the poverty level and the county should be providing them with more opportunities, the alleged stagnation of Colleton County and the “ignorance” of people opposing Data Centers and, specifically, their potential harm to aquafers, the alleged lack of transparency related to this ordinance by the county government, and – from a planning commission member – the fact that the council-adopted ordinance is “tougher on” any proposed, future Data Centers than the planning commission-adopted ordinance.
But the most extensive comments came from Council Member Steven Murdaugh (whose comments were not timed, unlike the public commenters).
Murdaugh said people opposed to the Data-Centers-allowed-here ordinance should keep in mind that the County Council members would not knowingly adopt an ordinance that would hurt the County or damage its future.
Murdaugh said, “I appreciate the speakers. This council has done everything we can, even to (the point of) visiting Data Centers. In 1945 the first Data Center was a mainframe computer, it was military. This evolved in the 1990s to what we see now, nearly 30 years later. Do they have problems? Absolutely. The technology has been changing over the entire 30 years; but this is an industry that has been in existence for 30 years.
“We’ve done everything we can to educate ourselves. There’s some people who are going to be against them no matter what the facts are, and there are some people who are going to be for them no matter that the facts are. Our job is, that we have to balance what’s best for our community and I think we have done that. We have public outcry for the location that was proposed, and we took that into consideration. That doesn’t mean that we are opposed to Data Centers anywhere in the county. That’s just not the facts. This is an industry that has been around for a long time.
“If the things that people say are going on are really going on (with data centers using water and power nationally), do you think we would cut on Fox News or CNN every night and not see something about it? Just because we have something that some people oppose, and some people support, doesn’t mean that we don’t have to balance it for the community.
“I don’t want to debate anybody. That’s not why I’m making these comments. But it seems like sometimes in this room, and sometimes behind keyboards, we want to make attacks on the County Council and that’s fine. We’re public figures, we’re trying; but if you’re sitting there thinking that we are not trying to take the county’s best interest at heart, that is not true. I have not served with, and everyone who has served on this bench with me, has had the county’s best interest at heart. We didn’t always agree on how to get there, but we always had the county’s best interest at heart. I’ve never served with a single sitting member of council who did not have the county’s best interest at heart. So, I guess the message is, we have heard what you have said, but we still have a job to do as County Council. I’m just going to leave it at that – I appreciate people coming and making your feelings known because unless you come to the meetings, we don’t know how you feel.”
County Administrator Thomas Higgs clarified that the ordinance establishing the Digital Infrastructure Overlay contains a provision that allows the Data Centers moratorium (previously approved by council) to remain in effect for areas east of I-95, except those zoned industrial, until the 5-year update of the Comprehensive Plan for 2030 has been given final approval by County Council.
In addition to the land near Ruffin specified for Data-Center-allowed-here by the ordinance up for 3rd reading this Monday night, Colleton County has an active proposal for a Data Center on former Weyerhaeuser land (discussed at a public meeting in December), and Council has authorized re-zoning of 638 acres near Cracker Barrell from commercial to industrial.
Following the 2nd ordinance reading, in a called meeting on the Friday evening of Labor Day Weekend (a meeting of 1 hour and 52 minutes), Colleton County issued an official statement saying that the 2nd reading adoption of 3 ordinances related to Data Centers will allow the County to “grow and develop strategically and economically” while remaining “conservation oriented.”
