Organized opposition has formed against a proposed data center north of Alpine, and opponents said they are ramping up their efforts to inform Brewster County residents about the detrimental effects the facility would have on the area.
In addition to advertising in local newspapers and a website (nobigbenddc.org), the ad hoc group has started posting flyers around Alpine listing what it believes will be the harmful impacts, including air and noise pollution, increased water use and the visual harm of a 3,000 to 4,000-acre industrial complex with a powerplant nestled against the Glass Mountains on a 8,400-acre ranch owned by real estate developer James Ahern. The property is known as the Little Suzy Properties, Ltd. Surrounding ranchers are key opponents of the proposal, which would be developed by Pacifico Energy.
“They have ranches because they enjoy the pristine environment of that area that would be lost forever with the power plants and the data centers,” said local attorney Rod Ponton, who is helping coordinate the effort. “And that’s one set of opposition. The other set of opposition is the same people that are opposed to the wall. They wanna preserve Big Bend. Big Bend is worth preserving at the south end with no wall, and Big Bend is worth preserving at the north end with no data centers and smokestacks.”
Opponents are using statistics from another Pacifico facility in Pecos County — the 7.65 gigawatt GW Ranch, now owned by Amazon — to look at possible impacts. That facility is planned to start providing power by spring of next year. It is one of the largest planned natural gas power plants in the county and received approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for the largest air pollution permit in the country. The TCEQ permit allows for the release of 12,000 tons of pollutants, including carbon dioxide, soot, ammonia and volatile organic compounds.
The size and exact operations of the Alpine plant and data center are not yet determined, according to Pacifico representatives who addressed a special meeting of the Brewster County Commissioners Court on September 15. Those representatives said they are in the first phase of the project, reaching out to local officials to try to develop relationships with them and try to answer any questions. The company did state the plans include a closed-coolant system to minimize the need for water. Such systems have developed technically to give them several years before they need to be refilled. Gas, at an undetermined amount, would be supplied by pipeline.
For opponents, including several anti-border-wall activists who spoke at the meeting, the common answer from representatives of “it depends” when asked questions about the scale of the project didn’t sit well, as they decried any industrial development in the Big Bend as unwanted.
Ahern, who bought his ranch in 2004 and has lived here since, said he understands the concerns, but countered that the project would be a huge economic boon for Brewster County with up to $200 million pumped into the local economies, some 10 times all the local government budgets combined. “It’s an enormous impact for our schools, for our county, for our roads … so the economic benefit is massive.”
A real estate developer, Ahern said he came to the realization that the project fits because the stretch of Highway 67 heading north to Fort Stockton is headed for massive power production infrastructure with the arrival of the Howard-Soltice transmission line near Fort Stockton. “The thing they could worry about more than my tiny little project right now is that there’s planned 1,000 wind towers on both sides on both sides of 67 … So basically, everything from Fort Stockton to close to Alpine in the next 10 years is going to be solar panels, wind towers, battery stations. And most of those leases and purchases are already in place. So my project will be the smallest but will have the most [beneficial] impact. It will be the least intrusive.”
Ponton said Pecos County officials largely kept the public in the dark and shepherded approval quickly for GW Ranch, something he and other opponents vow not to happen in Brewster County. Ponton said he’s fine with such developments north of Interstate 10 in the Permian Basin, which is better equipped to handle the needs for the thousands of workers needed for construction and already is saturated with oil and gas facilities. Those thousands of workers are also of concern to area residents who fear accompanying man camps and a massive temporary population that would strain local resources.
Ahern said the project could permanently employ 200 people with many salaries around $100,000, what he called another immense benefit to the Alpine economy.
According to the Texas Tribune, Texas has 11 power plant projects in construction, 102 in preconstruction and another 28 announced projects. That number has likely ballooned since the article was written. And TCEQ has fast-tracked permits for the plants and data centers. Gov. Greg Abbott formerly touted Texas as a leader in technology developments. But as data centers became a hotbed of controversy in the past few months, including among Republican voters, the governor has stepped back from cheerleading them and instead used an executive order to put a pause on any data center permitting on September 21 until several state regulatory agencies could conduct audits to gauge their impacts.
“Governor Abbott’s position is clear: Texans come first. Data centers must pay their own way, protect our grid and water, and complete the TCEQ, ERCOT and TWDB reviews,” Andrew Mahaleris, the governor’s press secretary, wrote in a statement to The Big Bend Sentinel. “Until they do, no state agency issues permits related to data center projects. The Governor will work with the legislature next session to eliminate any financial incentives for data centers.”
However, Inside Climate News reported yesterday on a FracTracker and Public Citizen report outlining that the governor’s action didn’t stop regulatory actions for numerous projects to move forward. “Our research uncovered glaring inconsistencies between regulatory actions and Governor Abbott’s directives,” Sam Law, manager of communications at FracTracker Alliance and author of the report, told Inside Climate News. “We need an actual pause to study the threats posed to the land, water and livelihoods of Texans.”
The publication reported that Mahaleris told it that the pause applied to approval, not processing, of permits. “No permits have been approved,” Mahaleris said in a statement to Inside Climate News. “In line with the Governor’s directive, TCEQ has not taken and will not take any proactive actions related to the approval of data center permits.”
The Big Bend Sentinel obtained two emails from staff members at the Governor’s Office of Economic Development & Tourism introducing Ahern, the landowner for the Alpine proposal, to Brewster County Judge Greg Henington with language that indicated the office was supportive of the project.
“I hope you are having a great start of the week!” wrote one staffer. “On behalf of the Office of the Governor in Economic Development & Tourism division, I’d like to introduce you to Mr. James Ahern, owner of Little Suzy Properties, Ltd. He found a suitable project to be developed in Brewster County and had reach [sic] out to our office to learn more about how our State Incentives work. This project entails building a power generation plant.” It’s unclear when that email was written.
“I’m jumping in to let you know that I am the project coordinator assigned to this impactful project,” another staff member wrote in an August 31 email to Ahern and Henington. “We have code named it project coded: Yellow Stone. I’d like to suggest that I set up a Teams meeting in the next week or two.”
Henington told the September 15 meeting attendees that the concerns over impacts were obvious, but that he thought it would be best to listen to the developers to hear what they had to say.
Mahaleris told The Big Bend Sentinel those emails were sent before the governor’s directive on the data centers, and it’s part of that office’s mission to help coordinate economic development of all types between companies and local officials. The project code name, he wrote, was simply a standard practice to let the office continue to discuss business projects that may require confidentiality.
