This coverage is made possible through a partnership between BPR and Grist, a nonprofit environmental media organization.
A five-megawatt data center could soon occupy a quarter-acre of land outside the rural community of Grape Creek, according to Cherokee County officials. The facility would be located on a property that adjoins Forest Service land and land owned by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians,
Carolina Endeavors, LLC, a Florida-based company, owns over 250 acres of land at the end of Grape Creek Road, just outside of the town of Murphy. The company is allegedly examining the possibility of building a data center on this land, which it’s owned since 2019.
Cherokee County is already home to one data center and two cryptocurrency mines. Some community members have been raising concerns about the noise pollution from these local operations since 2021. Others see a new data center as a potential source of economic development for rural communities badly in need of revenue. A nearby 104-megawatt data center in the rural community of Marble, operated by Core Scientific, provides hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue to the county and about a hundred jobs, according to the county tax assessor. But concerns about water, power, and land use have many in Cherokee County – including the county commission – determined to put guardrails on future developments.
Community concern spreads
Nancy Long, an organic farmer on Grape Creek Road, got a knock on the door in October from Blue Ridge Mountain Electric Membership Corporation, telling her about the possibility of an electric pole being moved from near her property to near the road. At first, she was excited — she’d wanted the pole moved for a while because the power company sprays chemicals in the grass to keep the right-of-way from being overgrown. However, she would have had to pay for moving the pole had she requested that before. When she asked why the pole is slated to be moved, the utility worker told her about a feasibility study in the works for a large power customer, an unnamed new neighbor.
“That even puts you on more high alert like, what do you mean you don't know what project's going in there? What do you mean you don't know the customer? So that gets the suspicion up,” Long told BPR. She said she talked to her neighbors about it, and several said they had similar experiences. Word spread fast, and Long, along with a number of other Grape Creek residents, invited officials to a community meeting at the Grape Creek Baptist Church Oct. 29.
Long said her husband, an enrolled member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, is concerned about the possibility of power poles being moved onto tribal land. Community members contacted Principal Chief Michael Hicks, who released a statement asking for a broad showing to the meeting.
“Earlier this year, Tribal Council approved an indefinite moratorium on data center development within EBCI lands,” Hicks said in a statement posted on Facebook. “This action reflected our concerns about the significant demands these facilities place on water and energy resources, their potential environmental impacts, and the effects they can have on the quality of life for nearby residents. These concerns are just as important when considering the proposed development in Grape Creek, given its proximity to Qualla Boundary land.”
Anna Lukens, the chief of the Unaka volunteer fire department in Murphy, spoke at the meeting, which had around 200 people in attendance. She told BPR that among her friends and colleagues at volunteer fire departments throughout the region, there was a feeling of uncertainty, especially around the resources data centers need which can guzzle as much power and water as a small town.
“I think that there's a lot of information we don't have. We don't know what kind of cooling system the people use. We don't know what amount of water it will draw, where they will get the water,” Lukens said.
A race to limit data centers at the county level
County Commissioner Ben Adams has led the charge to understand the impact of tech developments in Cherokee County, and has attempted to regulate them in the past. But there are nearly no land use restrictions — that is, no zoning — in Cherokee County, so that’s a challenge. As a result, a new data center can appear quietly if it’s already on private land.
“We had no idea about it, zero,” Adams told BPR. “They've never pulled a permit.”
Other county officials spoke off-record, citing legal concerns, but confirmed that, while not final, the data center is a possibility.
Cherokee County instituted a one-year moratorium on cryptocurrency mines and data centers in 2023, and extended it another year. However Adams said, county attorneys tell him the county likely cannot implement another moratorium.
Since March, he’s been working with the county commission on a high-impact land use ordinance, which would require authorization from the county on such a project, and set structure limits on land use, water use, and energy use, making it more difficult for a larger, power-intensive development to set up shop in the county. Adams told BPR that the commission is working to push the high-impact land use ordinance through the finish line as quickly as possible.
“We're kind of in between a rock and a hard place right now and nothing's been pulled, nothing has been set in stone, but we're just trying to get ahead of the curve and hopefully make this industry change their mind in coming into our county,” Adams said.
