North Texans ask company and city officials to disclose use of water and energy, conduct environmental studies and maintain transparency ahead of a vote that could move a data center forward.
Dozens of residents packed a meeting Tuesday at Rolling Hills Elementary, where representatives with Edged Data Centers, developer PMB Capital and the city of Fort Worth, including City Council member Michael Crain, presented details and answered questions regarding the planned facility.
Some of the residents in attendance included those with the newly formed advocacy group 2871 Community Coalition.
The advocacy group was born out of a March 16 meeting where members of the community discussed concerns and plans to approach Fort Worth officials about the city’s proposed tax abatement with Edged. The community-led group advocates for protection of the area’s neighborhoods amid booming developments, including industrial projects.
“We can’t go back. The rezoning has already happened,” Fort Worth resident Krista Erbe said at that meeting. “But we can raise our voices. We have a little bit of control in that part.”
Members of the coalition put together a document outlining their demands to City Council members and the companies should the tax break be approved. Those include:
- Disclosure of water use.
- A third-party study on noise and frequencies.
- Transparency and disclosure on generator testing and usage.
- Accessibility to a company representative.
- Environmental assessments on noise, air quality and water infrastructure.
- Contributed funding to the RM 2871 overpass.
- Financial transparency.
In a document dated March 23, Crain requested City Manager Jay Chapa provide a report on how Fort Worth officials evaluate, negotiate and approve data centers amid growing debate over the technology and infrastructure.
The report is to include a summary of the city’s existing zoning and land use, development standards, approach to analyzing impact on resource usage, required technical studies and any recommended coordination with the federal government relating to electricity, according to documents obtained by the Report.
“We’re growing. Fort Worth is growing,” Crain, whose district encompasses the site of the data center, said at Tuesday’s meeting. “I spend a lot of time making sure whatever’s coming in is compatible with neighborhoods and works with the overall growth plan of the city.”
In June, council members approved Edged Data Center’s request to zone 186 acres of land in Veale Ranch near the intersection of Interstate 20 and Chapin School Road for intensive commercial and medium industrial use.
In their March 3 meeting, economic development staff recommended council members offer a tax abatement to the company.
The agreement would provide Edged a 50% break in property taxes in exchange for a total of 50 job opportunities and a minimum average salary of $73,000.
Officials are set to vote on the tax abatement in a March 31 City Council meeting.
But residents remained critical Tuesday, demanding to know how the project and the tax abatement would add to the community’s value and quality of life.
“Now that we have these data centers coming, we want the city to acknowledge that the impact is not just 300 feet away,” Erbe said. She was one of many residents who cited concerns about a lack of transparency and communication from the city.
“It felt deceitful,” Fort Worth resident Jana Coler said. “There wasn’t any information on the project itself.”
Tax revenue generated by the facility would allow the city and PMB Capital’s effort to make the Veale Ranch master plan come to life, including other developments such as restaurants, grocery stores, parks and open space acquisitions, PMB Capital partner Taylor Baird said.
“I understand your perspectives, but it does all work together,” Baird said.
Crain prefaced the meeting by informing residents the Veale Ranch area was always intended to host industrial growth, attracting the future data center.
The tax abatement would cost the city about $18.2 million in taxes but bring in $49.3 million over the 10-year life of the agreement, according to city documents.
The Veale and Walsh ranches were carefully crafted by city planners who know “how cities and things should develop,” Crain said.
The company presented details about the data center’s water and power usage in response to a flurry of questions raised by the public about natural resources prior to and during the meeting.
Procuring power for projects such as data centers requires a multistep process, beginning with studies conducted by electricity distribution utility Oncor, Baird said. Those studies are then reviewed by the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, or ERCOT, which oversees 90% of Texas’ power service area.
Edged has also consulted with Oncor to manage its own electricity substation, mitigating the need to pull power from the state’s grid.
The company will commit to limiting frequencies and keeping decibels at city and industry standards, Baird added.
When it comes to cooling, Edged uses a waterless cooling method, a closed loop circuit, Baird said. PMB Capital turned away several companies but allowed Edged into its master plan due to their commitment to being resource-efficient, he said.
“People are waking up and saying, ‘This is really not good for our environment,’ and we agree,” Baird said.
The fight is part of growing criticism across the country of data centers and their impacts on the environment and public well-being.
The average data center uses from thousands to millions of gallons of water per day, according to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute.
The facilities, depending on their size, require megawatts of electricity. A megawatt alone is enough to power 300 homes a day.
Concurrently, residents in southeast Fort Worth and Forest Hill are fighting a data center campus planned by energy conglomerate Black Mountain. The company has so far gained nearly 500 acres to build its facility.
Nicole Lopez is the environment reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at nicole.lopez@fortworthreport.org.
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This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
