How one Maryland county defeated an Amazon data center

In late February, Calvert County residents noticed something odd: Amazon had posted a job listing for a construction manager in the little town of Lusby.

Amazon doesn’t have any facilities in the area, and community members realized the internet behemoth was planning a large data center campus nearby at Constellation Energy’s Calvert Cliffs nuclear power plant.

Making matters worse, residents learned county officials knew that but hadn’t said anything.

Reaction was swift. County meetings were soon packed with residents railing against data centers. Relationships between some commissioners and constituents turned cold. In June’s Republican primary, three incumbent commission members — all of whom repeatedly had opposed moratoriums on data center development — lost reelection.

Then, on Aug. 4, Calvert County’s anti-data center movement scored its biggest coup yet: Amazon pulled the plug on its plan.

This reversal, just months after Amazon submitted site plans in May to Calvert County, may be the most striking example of the force of Maryland’s insurgent anti-data center movement, which has swept across the state in the past year. Maryland’s data center industry remains in its infancy, and, according to the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, three quarters of residents now live in areas with a local data center moratorium or ban.

Though elected leaders across the state have at points courted data centers — which can bring jobs and windfalls of local tax revenues — this grassroots resistance has left the industry’s pathway into Maryland increasingly unclear.

Patti Stueckler didn’t think much about data centers when she decided to run for the Calvert County commission, but after learning about Amazon’s proposal she made the issue a centerpiece of her campaign. A banner across her website spells out her position: “NO DATA CENTERS IN CALVERT.”

A real estate agent and first-time candidate, Stueckler began speaking out at commission meetings and posting clips of her appearances to TikTok, where they garnered thousands of views. Her advocacy paid off in June’s Republican primary, when she and other anti-data center candidates knocked off three incumbents, including the commission’s president and vice president. All fell by several thousand votes.

“It was a shellacking,” Stueckler said. “I almost felt bad for them.”

Plans submitted by Amazon to the state and Calvert County outlined a sprawling campus of seven facilities near the nuclear plant. But Calvert County leaders said in a news release last week that Amazon had withdrawn its plan. The release said that the commission would consider a six-month data center moratorium on Aug. 18.

For Stueckler, the news was surreal. “It just shows the power of the people,” she said.

None of the ousted county commissioners — Earl “Buddy” Hance, Todd Ireland or Mike C. Cox — responded to emails for this story.

Amazon spokesperson Abebe Kebede said the company appreciates the engagement of Calvert County community members and called the withdrawal a “business decision.” The company considers development timelines, the needs of its customers and operational requirements in such decisions, said Kebede, who touted $20 billion in Amazon investments in the state since 2010.

“We explore many potential locations, but we move forward only where the conditions support responsible development, community priorities, and lasting value,” Kebede said in a statement.

Calvert residents aren’t strangers to industrial development. The county is home to Maryland’s only nuclear power plant and the East Coast’s first liquefied natural gas export terminal.

But the community also shares a border with the Patuxent River and the Chesapeake Bay, where the county’s signature sandy cliffs rise over the water.

Reflecting on his electoral defeat at a July commission meeting, Hance, a fourth-generation Calvert County farmer, said he always considered himself lucky to represent such a special community. But after seeing how some responded to the data center debate, he’d decided Calvert might not be so special after all.

“We’re just like everybody else,” Hance said at the meeting. “I thought we were better than that, but we’re not.”

Minutes later, an audience member confronted Hance about his participation at a 2025 data center conference hosted by the Maryland Tech Council. Hance denied attending, and the room erupted as one attendee held up a picture of him sitting on a panel at the event.

Hance apologized on Facebook a day later, saying he misspoke.

Some community members were particularly incensed to learn that Hance in 2024 and 2025 had entered into confidentiality agreements with data center developers, including the company Natelli Holdings, which is pursuing a separate campus farther south in the county.

Republican Del. Mark Fisher, who represents Calvert County in Annapolis, sought answers from the commissioners about the agreements during a public meeting in December. After a lengthy grilling, none of the commissioners responded to his statements or questions.

In a statement, Fisher called the episode with Amazon “a lesson that non-disclosure agreements should never be used by elected officials.”

“Hiding development projects from the public is wrong, unethical and must end,” he said.

After revelations about Amazon’s plans, Melissa Emmal, a resident of Huntingtown in northern Calvert County, organized a petition supporting a Calvert County data center moratorium, which has collected more than 10,000 signatures.

“People, I think, felt mad and kind of betrayed,” Emmal said.

She said she was surprised to see Amazon back down given how much time and planning the company apparently put into its plan, and she was struck by the way conservative and liberal-leaning residents banded together to fight data centers.

Mike Hart, one of two commissioners who has backed proposed data center moratoriums, called this period a nightmare for his community. The Republican retained his seat in the primary and hopes to push for stricter environmental protections in a new term.

“This county is full of good people, and to let something like this rip us apart should never happen,” he said.

Whether this marks the end of the road for data centers in Calvert County isn’t clear. Baltimore-based Constellation, the country’s largest owner of nuclear power plants, said “the opportunity continues” to bring jobs, boost the economy and support federal agencies with digital infrastructure in Calvert County.

“All of this can be done responsibly” while protecting and expanding Calvert Cliffs, said spokesperson Linsey Wisniewski.

Since the spring, the Calvert County commission has rejected a data center moratorium numerous times, but the winds seem to have changed. Hance told the commission last week that he plans to back the pause, a flip that would give majority support for a moratorium of at least six months.

A new commission soon will take the reins in Calvert County, and Stueckler said she hopes everyone can put the conflict to bed.

“I want us to heal,” she said. “I want us to come together.”