Important Announcements!
These are the most important opportunities coming up to get your voice heard.
Click each button below for more info and next steps:
DRI Contract Comment Period - deadline August 24th
Before Effingham County can approve a site for Project Camellia, a state agency called the Coastal Regional Commission reviews the project’s impact on the area, including things like water, traffic, flooding, and waste. This is called a DRI (Development of Regional Impact).
Every stat below comes from OpenAI's own estimates about their project, not from independent testing. That's normal at this stage, but it means no one outside the company has checked whether these numbers hold up.
What the report says, according to OpenAI's estimates:
🚨 Water: OpenAl says the site will use 0.03 million gallons a day and won't need a new water line. This is the company's own estimate. The application doesn't say who will verify that the closed loop system is built and operating as claimed.
🚨 Traffic: OpenAl says their own traffic study estimates that Project Camellia will increase daily traffic by 1,500 vehicle trips in the morning and 1,500 more in the afternoon.
🚨 Flooding: Parts of the site (in both the north and south sections) sit in a FEMA-designated flood zone with a l% chance of flooding in any given year.
🚨 Wetlands: The northern part of the site has the heaviest concentration of forested wetlands on the property.
🚨 Waste: OpenAl estimates only 4 tons of solid waste will be generated per year. Given the size of the center this seems like an extremely low number. The application doesn't explain how this figure was calculated, or whether it includes electronic waste from decommissioned servers (which data centers normally need to replace on an ongoing basis).
🚨 Jobs: 400 full-time jobs expected. The application says the local workforce is great enough to fill them, but no independent study has been done that we know of.
Send two short emails:
1. Email: planning@crc.ga.gov
Subject line: Project Camellia DRI #4801 - Comment
Deadline: Aug 24.
What to put in your email:
Say who you are
Where you live
Pick one topic from above that concerns you most.
Ask that it be independently verified before the county approves anything.
Two or three sentences, your own words! Again, 100 identical emails get counted as one comment. Make yours should sound like you.
Ask them to share your comment with the Effingham County Board of Commissioners.
2. Email the same comments to your commissioner:
Damon Rhan — Chairman: drahn@effinghamcounty.org
Forrest Floyd — District 1: ffloyd@effinghamcounty.org
Roger Burdette — Distric 2: RBurdette@effinghamcounty.org
Jamie DeLoach — District 3: jamiedeloachdistrict3@gmail.com
Beth Helmley — District 4: bhelmly@effinghamcounty.org
Phil Kieffer — District 5: philkiefferdistrict5@gmail.com
Since there’s technically no public comment for this, a direct email to your commissioner may have a big impact.
PSC Contract Objection — deadline extended to August 26th
The PSC commissioners have said to us that they are literally reading all of your comments — so keep it up!
No one knows what’s in the deal that will power the data center.
Georgia Power and OpenAI signed a contract for the electricity that will run Project Camellia. The public version of that contract is entirely redacted — every important detail is hidden. Only Georgia Power, OpenAI, and the Public Service Commission know what's actually in it.
PSC staff have until this Wednesday (Aug 26) to object to this contract — otherwise the deal moves forward with zero public review.
The local organization One Hundred Miles has made it as easy as possible to get your voice heard. Click below to send your email, and make sure to add 1 or 2 personalized sentences in the beginning of your email to make it stronger:
County Commission "Work Session" - deadline August 29th
The county commissioners are presenting their case for Project Camellia at a public "work session" and they plan to include an opportunity for public input on Saturday, Aug 29. "Due to limited time and seating" there will be a livestream. This will take place in their standard meeting location which only holds about 50 residents. However, showing up in person is the most effective action. Submit any and all important questions you have about Project Camellia and what is actually in the contracts below.
Click here to submit your questions
Please also email your commissioners and let them know what you think about the chosen location and ask how much of the 3 hours will actually be allotted for public participation.
Copy and paste this into the "To" field:
drahn@effinghamcounty.org, ffloyd@effinghamcounty.org, RBurdette@effinghamcounty.org, jamiedeloachdistrict3@gmail.com, bhelmly@effinghamcounty.org, philkiefferdistrict5@gmail.com
Ask Rincon City Council for a Moratorium — urgent!
There's no confirmed second data center project inside Rincon city limits, but we’ve heard from enough people in the construction industry that it's worth asking the council directly, before any new data center agreements are signed without public input.
A moratorium would pause new industrial/data center approvals for a set period so the city can put important rules in place first - instead of reacting to a deal after its done, the way the county did with Project Camellia.
This is a longer shot than the other emails on this page. City councils can move fast, and this kind of project may already be underway. Send your email anyway. A council that hears from ten people is different from one that hears from ten thousand.
Copy and paste this into the "To" field:
kexley@rinconga.gov, jblackwell@rinconga.gov, tmilner@rinconga.gov, briley@rinconga.gov, tboyett@rinconga.gov, mtaylor@rinconga.gov, munderwood@rinconga.gov
Subject line: Request for Data Center Development Moratorium
Scroll below for a guide on how to write your message!
How to write yours
Please don't copy anything from this page. A hundred identical emails get counted as one comment. A hundred different ones get counted as a hundred. Yours should sound like you.
Here's the outline for your email:
1. Say who you are and where you live.
One sentence. Your name, your road, how long you've lived in or near Rincon.
2. Say what you've heard, and ask them to confirm or deny it.
Be honest that it's not confirmed. Something like: you've heard that another data center project may be planned inside city limits, and you'd like the council to say publicly whether that's true.
3. Ask for the moratorium - and say why, in your own words.
Pick what's true for you:
You watched how fast and quietly Project Camellia moved, and you don't want that to happen again without residents knowing first.
You want the city to set rules (water, traffic, notice requirements, buffers) before another project shows up, not after it's proposed.
You want a public hearing and a real comment period before anything gets signed, not announced afterward.
4. Say why it matters to you.
Two or three sentences in your own words what Rincon means to you. What you're worried will change if this keeps happening without any public input.