OPENPUBLICA · PUBLIC MEETING RECORD
Record of Proceedings

Special Meeting of Calvert County Board of County Commissioners for Amazon Community Open House - March 30, 2026

County Commissioners & BoardsMonday, March 30, 2026
BodyCalvert County, Maryland
SessionCounty Commissioners & Boards
DateMonday, March 30, 2026
StatusFILED
Video Record
0:00 / 29:12

Transcript — Verbatim
0:10

Good morning everyone.

0:12

My name is Becky Ford.

0:17

Thank you.

0:19

Good evening, everyone.

0:21

It's great to be here in Calvert Middle School.

0:26

My name is Becky Ford.

0:28

I represent Amazon, AWS on our economic development team.

0:34

So I have the privilege of going all over the U.S.

0:38

working with communities and our subject matter experts to talk about where we locate data centers, evaluate communities, site requirements, and help us support our customers' needs.

0:55

So I'm really happy to be here tonight.

0:57

First and foremost, I want to thank the folks at Calvert County for helping us to pull this together, facilitating a portal where we could take in all of your questions and concerns and really make this opportunity for us to have a conversation with you possible.

1:19

So thanks very much to the staff and commissioners with Calvert County.

1:25

Would love to take a minute to also recognize some partners that are here tonight to join us.

1:41

And most importantly, our partners at Constellation.

1:56

This team has the responsibility of designing our data centers and data center campus.

2:04

And they are so excited to be here tonight.

2:09

Following this presentation, to join those folks over in across the hall and have the opportunity to walk around, visit each individual table and ask questions, get some information on what we're talking about tonight.

2:31

So why are we here?

2:34

We are here to talk about a potential project with Constellation Energy at a site adjacent to their existing facility here in Calvert County.

3:06

Mike's going to talk in a minute about energy, which is a big component of that.

3:12

And what I what I want everyone to know is that the reason we've not had more public engagement is that there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, a lot of time that we spend evaluating requirements, looking at the states regulations, looking at county regulations, looking at our own requirements for a site, and looking at different aspects of the property and how we would design and construct data centers.

4:01

I know folks have seen some of this information online.

4:06

But I want to reassure you that we've not submitted any site plans to the county.

5:02

So same presentation a second time for folks whose schedules may prevent them from attending this particular session.

5:11

So you're welcome to come back and hear it a second time, but uh but it'll be the same information.

5:19

So as part of this process, we uh we provided an opportunity for folks to submit questions through the county portal.

5:29

As of Friday of last week, the end of the day on Friday, we had over 300 questions submitted to that portal.

5:38

There were about 60 or 70 unique entries, like 70 folks, 300 plus questions, and I think as of today, we had roughly another hundred questions.

5:55

So we will be uh we will be making those making answers to those questions available on a landing page that will go live tomorrow.

6:05

It's part of the Maryland Tech Council.

6:08

A lot of the information you'll hear in the presentation tonight.

6:12

You'll be able to have conversations with our subject matter experts, and then if you want to refer to to the answers for future use or know understand what your uh what your friends and and neighbors have submitted in terms of questions, you'll have resources on that landing page.

6:34

The questions themselves uh were uh were in large part in several categories, and uh the presentation tonight is designed to uh to organize the information in those very categories.

6:50

So we'll be talking about water, energy, the environment, the construction process, which also involves permitting and timeline, and then benefits to the community.

7:02

I know everybody is is interested in hearing that.

7:13

Interestingly enough, one of the questions that was not submitted in the portal was what is a data center.

7:21

So I would encourage everyone to pick up this information when you go uh when you go across the hall.

7:28

Data centers power our everyday lives, they contain uh information that helps support our financial needs, it helps to process data, provide educational opportunities for our children, for our schools, for our universities, and uh and we are actively working to help support cloud services and the infrastructure associated with that.

8:03

Yeah, sorry.

8:07

Yeah, yeah.

8:11

We have millions of customers all across the world and have uh and have constructed uh campuses in number of states in and around this area.

8:21

Um the picture that I put up is uh is the current zoning in Calvert County.

8:30

So when we talk about why Calvert County in partnership with Constellation, we have evaluated the existing opportunity and currently zoned industrial property.

8:46

So there will not be any rezoning required to support this project.

8:53

It's all within the existing property that's zoned heavy industrial data center use is allowed.

9:03

Data centers are not new to Maryland, not new to Calvert County.

9:09

Uh in the in the due diligence that that we've conducted, we've been through the uh the county ordinance and requirements.

9:18

They are among the highest standards that we've seen in uh in many of the communities where we are considering development or actively developing and the the current stage of the project, some of you have seen online or as part of public information this particular site plan, which was submitted in September of 2025 as part of our uh wetland permitting due diligence.

10:00

It shows eight buildings on the site, and is reflective of what we are currently contemplating.

10:06

Although what I will say is that as we get further along in our due diligence in our design work, it's likely that this picture will change and shift a little bit.

10:20

We may have one building uh added or uh others taken away or moved depending on how the site itself meets our requirements.

10:33

So as we as we understand more about the property, more about the topography and how those buildings fit, we will mature our project to preliminary site plan phase, and at which point we will have much better renderings and drawings, and uh, and that will be available through the public process.

11:00

So from this point, we'll move to preliminary site plan, schedule a public meeting.

11:12

Yeah, I appreciate your uh your interest, and what I want to say is that we're gonna go through this presentation.

11:20

A lot of the questions.

11:24

Yeah, the the questions we'll take across the hall in the open house section.

11:29

So I'm I'm gonna get through this presentation in about 20, 25 minutes, and then we'll go across the hall and talk more.

11:38

Thank you.

11:44

All right, so let's talk a little bit about water.

11:49

A lot of the questions submitted through the portal were focused on water use and concerns related to cooling water.

Discussion Breakdown — Share of Meeting
Data Center Regulation█████████████████████████████████████████████53%
Workforce Development██████████12%
Environmental Protection████████9%
Energy Management██████7%
Zoning And Land Use█████6%
Water And Wastewater Management████5%
Economic Development███4%
Public Engagement███4%
Summary of Proceedings

Special Meeting of Calvert County Board of County Commissioners for Amazon Community Open House - March 30, 2026

This special meeting was an informational session and open house hosted by Amazon Web Services (AWS) at Calvert Middle School. The Board of County Commissioners attended to hear presentations from Amazon representatives on a proposed data center campus adjacent to Constellation Energy's existing facility. The presentation covered water use, energy, environment, construction, workforce, and community benefits, followed by a Q&A session. Note: The agenda for this meeting lists the date as Thursday, March 26, 2026, but the meeting summary is based on the provided transcript and user instruction to use March 30, 2026.

Discussion Items

  • Water Use: Becky Ford (Amazon AWS) stated that the project would require no new water for cooling. It would reuse water from Constellation's existing process after it has been through their cooling system. 96% of the year, data centers are cooled with outside air; the remaining 4% uses that cooling water. Potable water use is limited to sinks and toilets, similar to any other business.
  • Energy: Mike Fredette (AWS energy team) described that the campus is adjacent to a nuclear facility and crossed by three high-voltage transmission lines. AWS will build its own step-down infrastructure and make long-term revenue commitments to the transmission operator (BGE), ensuring no negative impact on surrounding ratepayers. AWS measures efficiency via PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness): globally at 1.15, 25% more efficient than the industry average of 1.58. AWS has a 2040 net-zero carbon pledge, is the largest corporate purchaser of renewables, and has invested in over 700 solar and wind projects (over 40 GW).
  • Environmental Commitment: AWS stated it would meet or exceed all environmental permitting requirements for air, water, and wetlands. Water withdrawal and discharge will be monitored daily under Constellation's existing permit. Public meetings for state permits will be part of the process.
  • Site Design and Construction: The site plan submitted in September 2025 shows eight buildings, but the design is still evolving. No final renderings are available. The location was chosen for proximity to energy, water reuse, and workforce. AWS will provide workforce training with organizations like College of Southern Maryland. The project is expected to create at least 250 permanent jobs (typically $80k-$100k salary range) and thousands of construction jobs.
  • Community Benefits: Amazon has engaged with the community to understand priorities (open space, recreation, water). Potential benefits include STEM education, tech upskilling, environmental stewardship, and employee engagement. The project is expected to generate tens of millions of dollars in new tax revenue (real property, business personal property, wage taxes), comparable to top employers like Constellation and the LNG facility.

Key Outcomes

  • No formal votes or decisions were taken; this was an informational session.
  • Over 300 questions were submitted via the county portal before the meeting, with roughly 100 more on the day of. Answers will be posted on a landing page (via Maryland Tech Council) going live the day after the meeting.
  • Amazon representatives directed attendees to the open house across the hall for individual conversations with subject matter experts.
  • The project is still in early stages; no site plans have been submitted to the county. A preliminary site plan will be developed, at which point a public meeting will be scheduled.
  • Next steps include continued community engagement and release of FAQ online.

Meeting Transcript

Good morning everyone. My name is Becky Ford. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. It's great to be here in Calvert Middle School. My name is Becky Ford. I represent Amazon, AWS on our economic development team. So I have the privilege of going all over the U.S. working with communities and our subject matter experts to talk about where we locate data centers, evaluate communities, site requirements, and help us support our customers' needs. So I'm really happy to be here tonight. First and foremost, I want to thank the folks at Calvert County for helping us to pull this together, facilitating a portal where we could take in all of your questions and concerns and really make this opportunity for us to have a conversation with you possible. So thanks very much to the staff and commissioners with Calvert County. Would love to take a minute to also recognize some partners that are here tonight to join us. And most importantly, our partners at Constellation. This team has the responsibility of designing our data centers and data center campus. And they are so excited to be here tonight. Following this presentation, to join those folks over in across the hall and have the opportunity to walk around, visit each individual table and ask questions, get some information on what we're talking about tonight. So why are we here? We are here to talk about a potential project with Constellation Energy at a site adjacent to their existing facility here in Calvert County. Mike's going to talk in a minute about energy, which is a big component of that. And what I what I want everyone to know is that the reason we've not had more public engagement is that there's a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, a lot of time that we spend evaluating requirements, looking at the states regulations, looking at county regulations, looking at our own requirements for a site, and looking at different aspects of the property and how we would design and construct data centers. I know folks have seen some of this information online. But I want to reassure you that we've not submitted any site plans to the county. So same presentation a second time for folks whose schedules may prevent them from attending this particular session. So you're welcome to come back and hear it a second time, but uh but it'll be the same information. So as part of this process, we uh we provided an opportunity for folks to submit questions through the county portal. As of Friday of last week, the end of the day on Friday, we had over 300 questions submitted to that portal. There were about 60 or 70 unique entries, like 70 folks, 300 plus questions, and I think as of today, we had roughly another hundred questions. So we will be uh we will be making those making answers to those questions available on a landing page that will go live tomorrow. It's part of the Maryland Tech Council. A lot of the information you'll hear in the presentation tonight. You'll be able to have conversations with our subject matter experts, and then if you want to refer to to the answers for future use or know understand what your uh what your friends and and neighbors have submitted in terms of questions, you'll have resources on that landing page. The questions themselves uh were uh were in large part in several categories, and uh the presentation tonight is designed to uh to organize the information in those very categories. So we'll be talking about water, energy, the environment, the construction process, which also involves permitting and timeline, and then benefits to the community. I know everybody is is interested in hearing that. Interestingly enough, one of the questions that was not submitted in the portal was what is a data center. So I would encourage everyone to pick up this information when you go uh when you go across the hall. Data centers power our everyday lives, they contain uh information that helps support our financial needs, it helps to process data, provide educational opportunities for our children, for our schools, for our universities, and uh and we are actively working to help support cloud services and the infrastructure associated with that. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah. We have millions of customers all across the world and have uh and have constructed uh campuses in number of states in and around this area. Um the picture that I put up is uh is the current zoning in Calvert County. So when we talk about why Calvert County in partnership with Constellation, we have evaluated the existing opportunity and currently zoned industrial property. So there will not be any rezoning required to support this project. It's all within the existing property that's zoned heavy industrial data center use is allowed. Data centers are not new to Maryland, not new to Calvert County. Uh in the in the due diligence that that we've conducted, we've been through the uh the county ordinance and requirements. They are among the highest standards that we've seen in uh in many of the communities where we are considering development or actively developing and the the current stage of the project, some of you have seen online or as part of public information this particular site plan, which was submitted in September of 2025 as part of our uh wetland permitting due diligence. It shows eight buildings on the site, and is reflective of what we are currently contemplating. Although what I will say is that as we get further along in our due diligence in our design work, it's likely that this picture will change and shift a little bit.

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