Harnett County Commissioners approve data center moratorium, $110M PFAS plan, and social media comment censorship policy

Harnett County Commissioners adopted a one-year moratorium on data centers, approved spending $110,000,000 to “reduce PFAS,” and moved to censure public comments on social media at the May 4 meeting.

Following a nearly two-hour long public hearing, the board placed a moratorium on data centers, data processing facilities, and cryptocurrency mining.

County Manager Brent Trout read a list of data center issues and reviewed Lee County’s new Data Center Uniform Development Ordinances and said they adopted a dynamic step in requiring data centers connect to available utilities. “I provided this as a basis to where we’re at on data centers in this current economy.”

Read details on Lee County’s Data Center ordinances here.

“The whole purpose of the moratorium is that we have nothing in our UDO to address them,” Chairman Duncan Jaggers said.

Commissioner Matt Nicol said they were opposed to data centers, and a company had viewed land for a data center.

Trout said they had not received an application for a data center.

The board moved to “reduce PFAS concentrations” in the water supply to comply with new standards by the Environmental Protection Agency effective in 2031. Polyfluoralkyl substances (PFAS) enter the water supply from factories, fire-fighting foam, landfills and manufacturing.

The state treats Fayetteville’s Chemours plant as a source of PFAS in the Cape Fear River and in private wells. Review the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NCDEQ) fact sheet.

Harnett County will spend $110,000,000 to reduce PFAS.

The breakdown:

Administrative $10,000,000

Construction $95,000,000

Contingency $5,000,000

The county will use USDA and SRF loans at $90,000,000 and transfer $20,000,000 from Harnett Regional Water reserves to reduce PFAS from the water supply, largely originating from a nearby plant, according to NCDEQ.

Without any discussion, the commissioners approved censuring public comments on social media at the request of the public information officer, Desiree Patrick.

Government social media pages are public forums, barring comment removal due to disagreement risks suppressing protected speech.

Terms about compromising public safety or targeting any group of people are open to interpretation and could lead to selective enforcement. Comments may be treated differently based on who is reviewing them, which raises concerns about fairness and bias. This risk is amplified by the absence of an appeals process, leaving the public without recourse for comment removal.

This policy clashes with public records requirements because North Carolina government social media posts are public records. Unarchived comment deletion risks compliance issues. Furthering the censure policy’s consequences, restricting private business promotion may hinder community interaction and seem inconsistent with county business engagement.

This censure policy may chill public participation. Moderation is needed for spam and threats, but policies work best when narrowly focused, clearly defined, and applied consistently to protect the public and uphold constitutional rights.

At the discretion of a public information officer, the public’s comments on the county’s social media pages may be removed if they:

Do not relate to Harnett County.

Include threatening language or obscenities.

Include spam.

Push for illegal actions.

Target any group of people.

Compromise public safety.

Promote private business.

Endorse political organizations.

Violate copyrighted works.

Include confidential information.

To satisfy the right of free speech, the public is welcome to post comments on Sandhills News’ social media posts covering the meetings. The only rules are to not use profanity or make defamatory comments about a specific person.

The next meeting is May 12 at 9 a.m.

May 4, 2026

Stephanie M. Sellers

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