PRINCE FREDERICK, Md. — Calvert County’s data center moratorium may be off the table for now, but an April 15 special meeting revealed that the county’s Environmental Commission recommended pausing data center development well before the vote took place.

The full recommendation is available online.

Director of Planning and Zoning Jason Brinkley confirmed that the Board of County Commissioners received the Environmental Commission’s recommendations “the Thursday or Friday” before the moratorium vote on April 8.

Planning Commission member David Bury asked the Environmental Commission to expand on the Board of County Commissioners’ (BOCC) position that an environmental review could not take place without a formal site plan on file from a developer, a rationale for a “no” vote given by Commissioners Hance, Cox and Ireland.

Dr. Janette Wysocki said that the proposed site for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) plan has already been the subject of a comprehensive environmental study. She also said that the plan AWS presented at its open house is detailed enough to conduct an environmental study.

“If they’ve gotten to that level of detail, they should be able to do an environmental impact study,” Dr. Wysocki said. The Natelli site, she added, is conceptual and doesn’t have an end user identified, which may make the study more challenging.

“However, we are in a unique ecosystem. So going to visit other data centers in other locations doesn’t really give you the same information as what we would have here,” Dr. Wysocki continued.

The AWS site is wetlands with a complex ecosystem; the site is headwaters for St. Leonards Creek that drains into the Patuxent. The area is also only 5 miles wide, so impacts would go in both directions and the wetlands and wildlife would be impacted.

“You can do a study without a site plan because that’s a very critical ecosystem,” Dr. Wysocki said.

The Planning Commission made several suggestions at the end of the meeting, including a request for a formal timeline and proposal on environmental studies from the Environmental Commission, additional text amendments on water and noise restrictions, text amendments on construction damage, and that all data center proposals must include a decommissioning plan.

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