Sue Data Centers

Image credits and licensing

Every photograph published on this site is listed below with the person who took it, where we obtained it, and the license it is used under. We credit photographers by name on the page itself, not only here.

What we publish

We use public domain government imagery, Creative Commons photographs whose licenses permit commercial use, photographs we commission directly, and operator press materials. This site carries attorney advertising, so we do not publish images licensed for editorial use only, even with credit. A build check enforces that rule automatically.

Corrections and takedowns

If you are a photographer and believe an image here is miscredited or used outside its license, write to hello@suedatacenters.org with the page URL. We correct or remove promptly, and we would rather hear from you than from your lawyer.

Licensing our images

Photographs marked as commissioned for SueDataCenters.org are ours to license. Newsrooms may reuse them at no cost with the credit Photo: [photographer] for SueDataCenters.org and a link to the page it appeared on. Write to hello@suedatacenters.org. Reporters can find our data, boilerplate, and logo on the press page.

Published photographs

  • Loudoun County carries more data center capacity than any other county in the world, and the corridor around Ashburn is where the American fight over siting, power and property values began.

    Theodore Christopher / Wikimedia Commons. Resized for web.

    Ashburn, Loudoun County, Virginia. Taken 2025-11-26. Original file · CC0 1.0

  • Google's Oregon campus sits on the Columbia River, and how much water it draws there stayed secret until a newspaper went to court to find out.

    Tony Webster / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0. Resized for web.

    The Dalles, Wasco County, Oregon. Taken 2015-05-17. Original file · CC BY 2.0

  • The campus sits directly on the Columbia River, and the rows of cooling units along each hall are what the water goes to. The public records fight was over how much of it the city was selling.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.3 m aerial imagery, scene m_4512123_sw_10_030_20220701.

    The Dalles, Wasco County, Oregon. Taken 2022-07-01. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • The nitrate case is visible in one frame: the data centers, the substation that powers them, the circle-pivot fields that take the treated wastewater, and the lagoon it passes through. Groundwater beneath this ground has been contaminated for decades.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.3 m aerial imagery, scene m_4511911_ne_11_030_20220716.

    Boardman, Morrow County, Oregon. Taken 2022-07-16. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • No single site is on trial in the AEP tariff appeal. This is what the demand looks like on the ground: an operating campus in Licking County, and beside it a graded pad for the next one. Who pays for the power those buildings draw is the whole fight.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.3 m aerial imagery, scene m_4008258_ne_17_030_20230521.

    New Albany, Licking County, Ohio. Taken 2023-05-21. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • More than 1,600 acres of forest northwest of the Interstate 20/59 and Interstate 459 interchange, with the neighborhoods that objected along its eastern edge. The imagery predates the proposal, so the tract is shown as it stood before any clearing.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3308748_ne_16_060_20230530.

    Bessemer, Jefferson County, Alabama. Taken 2023-05-30. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • The 290 acres north of the Pima County Fairgrounds, west of Houghton Road, as the desert stood before grading began. In a county arguing about water, what the land was is part of the argument.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.3 m aerial imagery, scene m_3211058_se_12_030_20231015.

    Pima County, Arizona. Taken 2023-10-15. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • The Edgerton dispute is not about a parcel. The city sued its own residents over a petition for a citywide ordinance. This is the existing warehouse in Logistics Park Kansas City that the proposed conversion would occupy.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.3 m aerial imagery, scene m_3809409_sw_15_030_20230817.

    Edgerton, Johnson County, Kansas. Taken 2023-08-17. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Unlike almost every other case in this tracker, the Midtown proposal sits inside a dense city, not on farmland. The Market Street parcels lie beside the historic Armory, the interstate and the rail corridor, with neighbors on every side.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3809023_sw_15_060_20220618.

    St. Louis, Missouri. Taken 2022-06-18. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Irrigated Imperial Valley farmland at Aten and Clark roads. The water at issue reaches these fields from the Colorado River, and the proposal turns on fallowing farmland to free some of it up.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3211512_ne_11_060_20220530.

    Imperial County, California. Taken 2022-05-30. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • The plant stands on the pad of a demolished power station off Stanton Road, with houses a few hundred yards northwest through the trees. This 2023 imagery shows the foundations before the gas turbines were installed on them.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3409008_ne_15_060_20230820.

    Southaven, DeSoto County, Mississippi. Taken 2023-08-20. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Colossus occupies a former Electrolux plant in southwest Memphis, with the Boxtown neighbourhood to the south. This 2021 imagery predates the conversion, so it shows the building and its neighbours as they stood before the machines arrived.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3509063_se_15_060_20211008.

    Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee. Taken 2021-10-08. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • This is the ground in 2022, graded years earlier for the Foxconn project and still farmland. By 2026 a 1.2 million square foot campus stood on it and more than 1,000 households were suing over the sound.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_4208717_se_16_060_20220623.

    Mount Pleasant, Racine County, Wisconsin. Taken 2022-06-23. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • The Pageland Lane corridor beside Manassas National Battlefield Park. The rezonings covering these 2,139 acres were voided and the final appeal withdrawn in July 2026, so what the frame shows is what remains.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3807712_ne_18_060_20231011.

    Prince William County, Virginia. Taken 2023-10-11. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Forty-two acres at Blackwell Road, bought in 2021 and still unbuilt. Three years of litigation have held the parcel in roughly the state this frame shows.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3807718_ne_18_060_20231023.

    Warrenton, Fauquier County, Virginia. Taken 2023-10-23. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Four data centers and their substation on one side of a thin line of trees, and the Great Oak subdivision on the other. The nearest houses sit a few hundred feet from the buildings, and the bare red ground to the north is the next phase going in.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3807720_ne_18_060_20231011.

    Bristow, Prince William County, Virginia. Taken 2023-10-11. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • The mine draws power behind the meter at the Wolf Hollow generating complex, on open ranchland where houses and small holdings sit in every direction. This 2022 imagery predates the rows of immersion units and the sound wall built on the residential side.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3209743_nw_14_060_20220706.

    Granbury, Hood County, Texas. Taken 2022-07-06. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • 672 acres of farmland north of Highland Drive, about a mile inland from Lake Michigan. Grading began in December 2025, so this frame shows the ground the Sierra Club and the residents' group are arguing about.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_4308734_sw_16_060_20220623.

    Port Washington, Ozaukee County, Wisconsin. Taken 2022-06-23. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • The former Fortistar plant off River Road, a small gas-fired station with houses on three sides. This 2019 imagery predates the mining hardware; the proximity it shows is the case.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_4307858_sw_17_060_20191005.

    North Tonawanda, Niagara County, New York. Taken 2019-10-05. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • A converted industrial plant in the middle of Dowagiac, with houses on the next street in every direction. The noise class action is about what runs inside it now.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_4108608_nw_16_060_20220901.

    Dowagiac, Cass County, Michigan. Taken 2022-09-01. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Farmland in Saline Township in 2022, before construction. The campus now rising on these fields is the one the settlement's community benefits package was negotiated around.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_4208357_ne_17_060_20220816.

    Saline Township, Washtenaw County, Michigan. Taken 2022-08-16. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Meta's building clusters at Stanton Springs, cut into forest on the Newton County line. Neighbours on private wells reported sediment and failures after construction here, and the company's own study is on record.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3308327_nw_17_060_20231008.

    Social Circle, Newton County, Georgia. Taken 2023-10-08. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • The DataOne facility off South Lincoln Avenue, with houses along the road. The complaint put 48 to 60 dBA at homes on the record against a 50 decibel overnight limit.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.3 m aerial imagery, scene m_3907540_se_18_030_20230820.

    Vineland, Cumberland County, New Jersey. Taken 2023-08-20. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Rural Coweta County around Sargent Road, inside a state-designated groundwater recharge area, where the county approved the Project Sail rezoning. The tract holds about 103 acres of wetlands.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3308433_se_16_060_20231003.

    Sargent, Coweta County, Georgia. Taken 2023-10-03. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Saddlebrook Farms on the west side of Alleghany Road, and the open fields across from it where 472 acres lost their residential zoning in about a minute. The imagery predates the vote.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_4208848_ne_16_060_20190809.

    Grayslake, Lake County, Illinois. Taken 2019-08-09. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • Farmland along U.S. 68 on the southwest edge of Wilmington, where the city rezoned about 471 acres for the campus in votes a federal judge later found broke Ohio's notice law.

    USDA Farm Service Agency / USGS National Map, National Agriculture Imagery Program. Cropped from NAIP 0.6 m aerial imagery, scene m_3908334_sw_17_030_20230526.

    Wilmington, Clinton County, Ohio. Taken 2023-05-26. Original file · Public domain (U.S. government work)

  • This is the Foxconn data center in Mount Pleasant, not Microsoft's Fairwater campus, which sits about two miles away on land originally graded for the Foxconn project. No free photograph of Fairwater itself exists yet.

    Chad Davis / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY 2.0. Resized for web.

    Mount Pleasant, Racine County, Wisconsin. Taken 2023-12-28. Original file · CC BY 2.0