Making Daily Headlines · Page 6
West Virginia's Dark Skies Meet a Proposal Measured in Thousands of Acres
· New York time
Residents are opposing plans for a data center project that would span thousands of acres near West Virginia's Monongahela National Forest. The area includes scenic wilderness, outdoor recreation, ski areas and dark sky sites. The proposal places a large piece of digital infrastructure beside places valued for very different reasons. Visitors come for mountain scenery and recreation, while dark sky sites offer a view that depends on the absence of excessive artificial light. Residents fighting the plan are concerned about what a development of this scale could mean for the landscape. The project is a plan, not an operating facility, and its future is the subject of the local dispute. Its proposed size nevertheless makes the choice visible: thousands of acres are difficult to tuck discreetly behind a scenic overlook. Data centers support activities that can feel almost weightless to users, from storing information to delivering online services. Their physical footprint is a different matter. In West Virginia, people looking up at the night sky are being asked to consider a large neighbor for the machinery behind the screen. The cloud, it turns out, has a land question.
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