A Virginia county has given the green light for a massive digital processing center to be built across from Manassas National Battlefield/Kurt Repanshek file

Apparently not even Ken Burns could prevent a massive, energy-thirsty data center from being built across from Manassas National Battlefield Park in Virginia.

Burns, who along with Dayton Duncan in 2009 celebrated the National Park System with their documentary, The National Parks: America's Best Idea, in January 2022 had reached out to the chair of the Prince William County supervisors urging them to oppose allowing the PW Digital Gateway from being built on 2,000 acres next to the battlefield, which was the setting for the First Battle of Bull Run (First Manassas) on July 21, 1861, and the Second Battle of Bull Run (Second Manassas) over nearly the same ground during August 28-30, 1862. 

"As a student and chronicler of American history for more than 40 years, I can attest to how fragile our precious heritage is and how susceptible it can be to the ravages of 'progress,'" Burns said in that letter. "I learned while making my documentary series The Civil War in the late 1980s—and again when I made my 2009 series on the history of the national parks—how crucial the preservation of our historic landscapes is, and I fear the devastating impact the development of up to 2,133 acres of data centers will have on this hallowed ground."

Nevertheless, the county supervisors voted on Wednesday to rezone 2,100 acres for the digital complex, which the National Parks Conservation Association compared to "the size of several Pentagons."

The proposal had prompted Preservation Virgina back in 2022 to list Manassas National Battlefield Park on its "Most Endangered Historic Places" list.

"Locating data centers within technology corridors and away from culturally sensitive areas would convey how local governments value and support the preservation of their irreplaceable historic resources," the organization said in its 2022 list of endangered sites.

In reviewing the proposal in 2022, Justin Patton, the Prince William County archaeologist, wrote that the project would "have a high potential to adversely affect cultural resources in the following forms: indirect effects such as Audio, and Visual; and direct effects in the destruction of the resource. Transportation improvements necessary to implement land use and zoning changes, will likely have an indirect and direct effects on our history as well."

"This vote is a tremendous failure on the part of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors – one that will have lasting consequences for generations of Virginians," said Kyle Hart, NPCA's Mid-Atlantic program manager. "Giving developers the OK to build massive data centers in the shadow of Manassas National Battlefield Park is an insult to the thousands of lives lost here in two of the bloodiest battles of the American Civil War. It’s a disservice to the hundreds of thousands of people who come from all over the world to visit the battlefield every year, searching for solace and meaning on these hallowed grounds.

“This decision should be a wake-up call for national park advocates and conservationists across the Commonwealth of Virginia," added Hart. "Our leaders failed us here in Prince William, but it doesn’t have to be that way. With common sense reforms and regulations in place, data centers can be appropriately sited and built with far less risk to our priceless history or our climate. That did not happen today."