By Doug Kelly
All across America, rural counties face the same concerning math: large federal and state funding cuts, local tax bases that can’t keep up with the cost of schools, roads and public safety, and young families and jobs heading for the exits.
On April 7, the Board of County Commissioners voted three to two to reject a two-year moratorium on data center development. That decision didn’t ignore community concerns – it addressed them. County leaders tightened zoning, restricted data center building to heavy industrial areas and directed staff to study how new revenue could support schools and lower property taxes. Then they made the most important call: they kept the door open to investment.
In making this decision, county officials had a clear understanding of the challenges they face. Calvert is a rural county of 94,000 people that recently absorbed a $22.9 million cut in state funding, forcing higher taxes on local families. Nearly 70 percent of residents commute out of the county for work and population growth is expected to stall over the next 15 years.
Calvert County isn’t alone. Federal and state cost shifts could push nearly a trillion dollars onto local governments over the next decade. In other words, the math doesn’t work for Calvert or hundreds of other counties.
Instead of managing decline, county leaders looked for a way to build. Today, Calvert has two major data center opportunities under consideration. One is a $3 billion campus proposal from Natelli Holdings, projected to generate $3 million in annual tax revenue during construction alone, on land already zoned for heavy industrial use. Another proposed data center, from Amazon Web Services (AWS), would be located near the Calvert Cliffs Nuclear Power Plant and leverage existing cooling infrastructure.
Just as important, the county is proposing clear rules for data centers to reduce environmental impacts by limiting water use for cooling, banning on-site wells, requiring cleaner generators to lower emissions and strengthening stormwater controls. The amendments also require developers to fund all project infrastructure, creating a framework for responsible growth.
That’s the real lesson. The choice isn’t between growth and no growth. It’s between shaping growth or watching it go somewhere else.
America’s global competitiveness is built county by county. Every data center that isn’t built locally is capacity that either moves to a different state or isn’t built at all. In a global AI race where infrastructure determines leadership, those decisions to build or not to build have generational consequences.
China understands this. It is building AI infrastructure at scale, with a coordinated national strategy and far fewer constraints. The question for American communities isn’t whether change is coming. It’s whether we will compete or sit on the sidelines.
Calvert County has faced moments like this before. When tobacco farming collapsed in the 1990s, the county adapted, transitioning land use, diversifying into new industries and rebuilding its local economy.
Today’s challenge is different, but the principle is the same: either shape the future, or fall behind.
Opponents of these projects are asking the county to walk away from billions in private investment, thousands of construction jobs and a durable new tax base without offering a credible alternative. No plan to replace lost revenue. No strategy to attract new jobs. Just delay.
Calvert County chose a different path. It chose to build with guardrails, with community input and with a clear understanding of what’s at stake. More communities across America should do the same.