The data center fight in Clarendon County, South Carolina
As of October 25, 2026, Clarendon County, South Carolina has a data center moratorium in force (action taken Sep 14, 2026).
Status is derived, not stored — a pause with a documented end date flips to Expired on its own — and the source is right next to the claim.
Status today
Ordinance 2026-18: six-month pause on land-use and development approvals for data centers and battery energy storage systems outside Industrial I and II zones; does not stop Project 59 in the industrial park. Passed third and final reading unanimously (scheduled for the Sept 14 regular meeting; local outlets do not state the date outright, so Sep 14 is inferred from the meeting schedule and a Sept 14-18 roundup). No ordinance text or minutes read; effective date and end date not stated in sources.
SourceNews
read 2026-10-11
An expiry date is the earliest a pause could have ended — extensions are common, so confirm with the clerk before citing it.
What to do next
- Questions to ask at the hearing — force specific answers onto the record.
- Estimate the impact — electricity, water, and rate pressure for any facility size in South Carolina.
- Model CBA clauses — copy-paste language communities have actually won.
- South Carolina briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts, and every fight in the state.
Nearby in South Carolina
- Orangeburg County (39 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-07-23
- Kershaw County (51 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
- Colleton County (59 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-01-07
- Mount Pleasant (64 mi) — Proposedterm not documented
- Chesterfield County (67 mi) — Enactedexpires 2028-01-01
- Fairfield County (72 mi) — Proposedfixed term, end date not recorded
- Newberry County (91 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-07-16
- Chester County (92 mi) — Enactedexpires 2027-01-21
All 15 tracked actions in South Carolina are on the state page.
As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing
Illustrative rather than exhaustive — dozens of localities churn weekly, and this tracks the ones we have read a source for. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to the ordinance, the enacting body's own page, or a datable report of the vote, and were read on that date. Rows marked *unverified* came from bulk compilation and have not been checked against a primary source — the locality, the year, and the status may all be off. Verify one of those with the town clerk before citing it as precedent. **Expiry is derived, not asserted.** A row with a documented end date flips to *Expired* on its own once that date passes. A time-limited moratorium whose start date was never documented keeps showing as enacted — that is a known gap, not a claim that it is still in force. Moratoriums are also routinely extended, so an expiry date is the earliest it could have ended, not proof that it did.
Part of the U.S. data center moratorium tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0.