By Valerie Cury

For nearly too long, Sterling residents living near Vantage Data Centers’ VA2 campus have complained about a persistent high-pitched noise, questioned the effects of the facility’s emissions on their health and asked why an on-site natural gas power plant was allowed to begin operating so close to their homes.

On Aug. 24, many of those residents came to Park View High School looking for answers.

Supervisor Koran Saines (D-Sterling) called the town hall, bringing together representatives from Loudoun County, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and Vantage Data Centers for more than two hours of questions from residents.

The 800,000-square-foot Vantage facility on Glenn Drive is unlike any other data center operating in Virginia. Rather than receiving its primary power from the electric grid, it is powered by eight on-site natural gas turbines, generally with seven operating at a time.

What was described as temporary power, however, could remain in place for years.

Misty Allen, Vantage’s vice president of public policy for North America, told residents the facility currently sits in “Batch 11” of Dominion Energy’s interconnection queue.

“If nothing changes over the next couple of years,” she said, “we will need to have the power supply from the temporary turbines until approximately 2040.”

That drew concern from residents who have already spent too much time listening to what they describe as a persistent whine that can be heard inside and outside their homes.

Saines began the meeting by explaining how the facility reached this point.

The data center itself was a by-right use. In March 2023, the Board of Supervisors approved an application allowing greater density on the property. According to Saines, after that vote Vantage learned that Dominion would not be able to provide grid power for several years.

Vantage subsequently submitted a revised site plan that included an expanded equipment yard, utility equipment and a natural gas facility. County staff administratively approved the change in October 2023.

“At no point was the board or myself, or even those who were attending community meetings, made aware of this administrative change,” Saines said.

Residents did not begin learning what the change meant until the turbines were operating.

Saines said that in March 2025, after neighbors complained about noise, County zoning staff investigated. Initially, officials believed residents might be hearing construction or testing of backup generators.

Instead, they discovered that the continuing noise was coming from the natural gas turbines being used as the facility’s primary power source.

By May 2025, Vantage had confirmed that the persistent humming originated from the turbine plant.

That history frustrated several residents, including one man who said he attended a Vantage community meeting in October 2022.

“There was no mention of turbine engines on the site there,” he said.

He questioned why Vantage did not return to the community after deciding to install an on-site power plant.

“Because we would have all opposed it,” he said, adding that residents now have to live with the consequences.

He described the facility as a “huge nuisance” affecting residents’ health, well-being and property values.

Allen said she was not with Vantage in 2022 but told residents the company is now committed to better community engagement.

For many residents, however, the question was no longer simply how the facility had been approved. It was whether existing standards adequately protect the people who live around it.

County Acting Zoning Enforcement Division Manager Amanda Johnson said the residential noise limit is generally 55 dBA and explained that inspectors must follow specific procedures governing where, when and how measurements are taken.

Since early 2025, County staff have conducted approximately 132 individual noise readings on 20 inspection dates. Some readings exceeded the residential limit, but the County determined those measurements could not be used to establish violations because other sounds—including traffic, aircraft or outdoor activity—affected the readings.

Johnson said the County has also conducted unannounced late-night and early-morning inspections in an effort to isolate the Vantage noise when traffic and other background sounds are reduced.

Yet residents repeatedly questioned what it means for a facility to remain technically compliant while producing a sound that has changed daily life in their neighborhoods.

One resident put the issue directly to Vantage.

The company, she noted, has repeatedly emphasized that the facility has remained within the County’s 55-decibel standard. But only after residents began complaining did Vantage install acoustic panels, louvers, baffles, skirting and other noise-reduction measures.

“So which failed here,” she asked, “Vantage’s original engineering, or a county standard that allowed this level of community impact while the facility remained technically compliant?”

Allen acknowledged that it was a fair question.

Vantage has spent approximately $15 million on noise mitigation, she said, including acoustic blankets around turbine equipment, redesigned vent hoods, sound baffles, wall panels and modifications to exhaust fans.

The company’s testing has measured noise reductions ranging from two to six dBA, Allen said, and additional mitigation is continuing.

Another resident acknowledged that conditions have improved but said the high-pitched whine remains, particularly on humid days and when winds carry the sound toward area homes.

Resident Craig Dobbs focused on the character of the noise rather than simply its volume.

“Your noise is at 2.8 kilohertz,” he told Vantage representatives. “It is heard all the way over half a mile away.”

He said the sound falls within a frequency range to which human hearing is particularly sensitive.

Allen acknowledged that Vantage is still trying to identify and address the tonal component of the noise, calling it an “engineering challenge.”

Health concerns brought some of the meeting’s most emotional testimony.

One Sterling mother, fighting back tears, told officials that her 2-year-old son has chronic upper respiratory problems.

“I feel really my confidence in living in this area is shaken every day,” she said.

She asked whether anyone is tracking health changes among people living near the area’s growing concentration of data centers—253 and counting.

“Thinking about what the health effects are going to be to my son, and I’m sure anyone who’s here who has children feels the same way,” she said.

Monitoring pollution after the fact, she said, would provide little comfort if children were already suffering health effects.

“Who is keeping track of the health changes to the populations around here?” she asked.

Virginia Department of Environmental Quality Deputy Director Jonathan Rak said DEQ has placed a temporary air-quality sensor near the Vantage facility as part of a broader data center monitoring project in Loudoun.

Data collected from June through mid-August showed air quality within what DEQ considers the safe range except during periods affected by Canadian wildfire smoke, Rak said.

DEQ also responded after Vantage’s diesel backup generators ran for more than 24 hours during a July incident. Inspectors observed visible emissions from one generator that appeared to exceed permitted levels, although wildfire smoke made the measurement difficult. DEQ subsequently issued a warning letter requiring Vantage to inspect and maintain the backup generators.

Another resident questioned DEQ about its ability to reach conclusions involving human health, noting that the agency does not employ physicians or medical experts.

Rak said DEQ relies on health standards established by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and focuses on collecting actual air-quality measurements that can be used by those evaluating potential health effects.

Sterling School Board representative Amy Riccardi broadened the discussion beyond noise measurements and individual permits.

When she ran for School Board, Riccardi said, transmission lines and data centers “were not on my bingo card.” They have since become issues consuming a significant amount of her time.

She said residents came to Loudoun for green spaces and quiet, but have watched trees disappear, power infrastructure expand and data centers rise near neighborhoods and schools.

“I feel like we’ve missed the bigger issue,” Riccardi said. “We have seriously diminished the quality of life here in Loudoun County.”

She called for larger changes rather than continuing to address problems one at a time after they occur.

“I love AI and I love technology like everybody else does, but there’s a place for these,” she said, “not sitting across from people’s homes, not running power lines through our school campuses, not running transmission lines through our neighborhoods.”

Vantage said the lines it is considering to bring additional electricity to VA2 would be distribution lines, not large transmission lines, and that the company hopes to place as much of them underground as possible.

The company is also exploring bringing power from another Vantage campus, which could allow at least one of the seven regularly operating turbines to be shut down.

Saines said the County has formed a working group to review noise standards, including turbine use and tonal frequencies, with recommendations expected to reach the Board of Supervisors. 

He is also pursuing changes that could place limits on how long emergency generators operate and said he wants state law changed to require public hearings for permits involving gas turbines and backup generators.

The County has already changed its rules so that a similar natural gas generating facility could no longer receive the same type of administrative approval used for Vantage VA2.

But those changes came after the Sterling facility was approved.

One resident summarized that chronology in a single observation: development came first, impacts came second and protections arrived third.

That remains the dilemma facing the neighborhoods surrounding VA2.

Vantage says it is complying with existing standards and continuing to spend millions of dollars reducing the impact of the facility. County and state officials say they are monitoring conditions and considering stronger regulations.

Residents, meanwhile, are still living beside seven operating natural gas turbines that they never expected to be there—and which, absent a faster connection to the electric grid, could remain their neighbors until 2040.