Data Center Watch's Q2 count: $68bn/45 projects blocked or delayed, with 843 opposition groups now active in 49 states

What happened

Research group Data Center Watch counted roughly 45 US data-center projects worth $68bn blocked or delayed by local opposition in Q2 2026 (April–June), and identified 843 organized opposition groups now active across 49 states (all but Hawaii) — the direct follow-on to this thread's own 08-31/09-04 entry logging the same group's Q1 2026 figure ($130bn across 75 projects). The Q2 total is a smaller dollar figure than Q1 but confirms the pattern this thread has tracked case-by-case all year (Cary, Bradley County, Mona UT, Prince William, San Francisco, and others) is now a measured national trend, not a string of isolated fights: roughly 30 state legislatures have introduced or adopted rules on data-center siting, power or water this year. Widely corroborated same-day/next-day (Bloomberg, Tom's Hardware, Breitbart, IBTimes, Yahoo). (Bloomberg, Tom's Hardware)
Prince William County, Virginia's Board of Supervisors voted 8-0 to end by-right approval of data centers, shrinking the overlay district where they can be built without a public hearing from about 9,700 acres to roughly 3,650 The Tuesday vote adopts the zoning change its Planning Commission recommended 09-10: most new data centers outside the overlay now need a special-use permit with public review and a board vote, the overlay keeps by-right status only for properties meeting one of five eligibility criteria (including existing data-center rights or projects already in the pipeline), and the overlay is closed to future expansion. Supervisors kept a 90-day transition period for some properties already inside the overlay (the commission had urged 120), and a motion to drop the grace period entirely failed. (Patch, InsideNoVa)
Baltimore County's Council voted unanimously to extend its data-center moratorium through at least the end of 2027 The freeze dates from February, when the council stopped a plan for a 42-acre data center in a former Social Security Administration building in Woodlawn. Republican Councilman Todd Crandell said the industry "has not come to us and explained" its environmental and energy-cost impacts; the county planning board approved its data-center study report 09-17, which the council chair said he had not yet reviewed. Speakers at a hearing earlier in the month urged the council to go further and ban data centers outright. (WYPR, FOX45)
San Francisco's Planning Department says it does not track how many data centers exist in the city, as a private-equity firm appears to be eyeing a 1.6-acre Dogpatch site for what could be the city's largest yet The Standard reports the city has no land-use definition for data centers, and that Supervisor Shamann Walton's 45-day moratorium proposal (which he says would force staff to build that count) still needs a Board of Supervisors vote; the Dogpatch lead, at 1215 Michigan St., was first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle. (San Francisco Standard)
An Oakland City Council committee voted unanimously on Tuesday for a 45-day moratorium on new data-center projects; the full council must still vote. The measure, from Councilmember Carroll Fife, followed an August announcement by Behring Companies of a plan for a data center in a downtown building that once housed a Department of Energy supercomputer; only one project has been proposed in the city. Gilroy and Richmond have passed 45-day pauses of their own. (The Oaklandside, NBC Bay Area)
Thornton, Colorado voted 5-3 for a one-year moratorium on data centers larger than 50,000 square feet, and Commerce City voted 7-1 for a six-month halt on accepting data-center applications. Both took effect immediately, joining Denver, Jefferson County, Larimer County and Loveland; Thornton's interim city attorney said the city has one operating data center and no pending applications, while Aurora rejected a moratorium in August and is drafting regulations instead. (Denver Post)
New Jersey fined the operator of a Vineland data center $1.07 million, the largest enforcement action against a data center in state history, for running 62 large natural-gas generators without required air permits The state environmental agency found them at a July 29 inspection; the operator, DataOne, was given 45 days to apply for permits and can keep running the engines meanwhile, disputes the fine and says it is moving to fuel cells, and Ars Technica reports residents say the site powers Microsoft's Copilot tools. (Governor Sherrill, Ars Technica)

Sources 12

Bloomberg bloomberg.com high 0.84 disputed / split
Tom's Hardware tomshardware.com practices 6/7
Patch patch.com unrated
InsideNoVa insidenova.com unrated
WYPR wypr.org unrated
FOX45 foxbaltimore.com unrated
San Francisco Standard sfstandard.com unrated
The Oaklandside oaklandside.org unrated
NBC Bay Area nbcbayarea.com unrated
Denver Post denverpost.com unrated
Governor Sherrill nj.gov unrated
Ars Technica arstechnica.com high 0.946 generally reliable

Credibility ratings combine two public datasets: Lin et al. 2023, PNAS Nexus 2(9):pgad286 (CC BY 4.0) for the domain-quality score, and Wikipedia's perennial-sources list (CC BY-SA 4.0) for the reliability tier. A rating describes an outlet's general record, never this particular article. Unrated means absent from those datasets — not a judgement.