The MissionThe StandardsFAQGet InvolvedDonate
The Standards / Construction & Operations05 / 08

CONSTRUCTION & OPERATIONS

Traffic, road damage, dust, diesel emissions during construction and ongoing backup operations

The Framework

What your community should assess, what controls exist, what policy tools are available, and how to verify compliance.

What to Measure

Truck volume, construction duration, road usage, generator capacity, run hours, emissions profile

Engineering Controls

Traffic routing plans, staging areas, dust suppression, low-emission generators, battery backup integration

Policy Tools

Construction management plans, road repair agreements, time-of-day limits, emissions permits, operating hour caps

Monitoring

Traffic monitoring, infrastructure inspection, emissions monitoring, run-time logging

Example StandardDeveloper-funded road restoration; emergency-only generator operation with annual hour limit
Evidence
3 sources
VCU Institute for Sustainable Energy & Environment (2025)

Peer-reviewed spatial analysis mapping air pollution from diesel backup generators at 138 data centers across four Northern Virginia counties

  • Data center diesel generators already account for 11% of nitrogen oxide and 3% of particulate matter emissions from Northern Virginia point sources — and between 2015 and 2023 their CO emissions rose 196%, NOx 111%, and PM 139%
  • Current output represents only 4–7% of what permits allow; at full permitted capacity, data centers would produce 74% of the region’s point-source NOx and 50% of its particulate matter
  • Cumulative neighborhood-level emissions exposure near data center clusters already equals or exceeds exposure from the Dominion Possum Point power station, one of the region’s largest fossil-fuel plants
Full study — VCU Scholars CompassVCU News summary
Virginia Mercury / Virginia DEQ Permit Data (Dec 2025)

Investigative reporting synthesizing Virginia DEQ permit records showing the cumulative scale of diesel backup generator capacity at data center campuses statewide

  • Virginia has permitted nearly 9,000 diesel backup generators at data centers statewide, with roughly 4,700 concentrated in Loudoun County alone — representing 12 GW of diesel generation capacity
  • In a worst-case scenario, those generators could release 9,000 tons of nitrogen oxides per year, equal to roughly half of all NOx emitted annually in Northern Virginia
  • In 2023 the generators emitted only about 7% of their permitted allowance, but a proposed DEQ rule change would allow generators to run during planned grid outages lasting days or weeks
Virginia Mercury investigationVirginia DEQ — Air permits for data centers
Louisiana Illuminator / Gulf States Newsroom (Nov 2025)

Data-driven investigation using Louisiana DOTD traffic counts and police crash records to document road safety impacts from construction of Meta’s $27 billion data center in Richland Parish

  • Traffic on Highway 183 in front of Holly Ridge Elementary School jumped from 1,817 vehicles/day (Feb 2022) to 5,224 vehicles/day (July 2025) — nearly tripling — as dump trucks and 18-wheelers began serving the 2,250-acre construction site
  • Crashes on surrounding roads rose from 9 in all of 2024 to at least 64 in the first nine months of 2025, a 600%+ increase that prompted DOTD to convert three intersections to all-way stops
  • Meta committed over $300 million to local road, water, and wastewater infrastructure repairs; at peak, roughly 5,000 construction workers commute to the site daily
Louisiana Illuminator — 600% crash spikeNPR — Dangerous road conditions