By: Brian Bennett
Washington, WV
When I saw the original headline for a proposed data center in the April 9th Advocate I was pleased at the possibility of jobs and increased tax revenue for Tucker County. I just got to the 4th paragraph of the article and the misinformation started. Senator Randy Smith said a data center had filed for a permit to come to Tucker County This never happened then, and as of this writing, still has not happened.
Mayor Al Thomson of Davis joins in by saying the project would bring risks to the area, threatens natural resources, and jeopardizes the water supply. He never says how these things will happen, just that they will. The Friends of Blackwater really gin up the scare by saying the project will bring unwanted noise, toxic air pollution, bright lights, and traffic. Just remember folks at this point the only thing the permit that Fundamental Data asked for was for a power plant. No data center.
I have read the Advocate every week now for 13 editions and have read a lot of complaints about tax structure, few jobs, little or no income to the county, but I have never seen any figures at all.
This ends now! According to the Fundamental Data permit there will be 50 full time jobs at the power plant, but maybe more. The starting pay at Mount Storm is $27 per hour, $1080 per week, or $56,160 per year. The operator pay there is $46 per hour, $1840 per week, or $95,680 per year. These are living wage jobs. The average wage in Tucker County is $30,000 per year. These new jobs would be 2 to 3 times the average wage now.
Taxes, taxes, lets talk taxes. I have talked with Casey Chapman of Fundamental data 5 times now for a 3 hour total. Because Fundamental did not file as a microgrid, he believes that the taxes on the power plant should all go to Tucker County. I talked with assessor Greg Stevens and at a $100,000,000 cost to build the power plant the money to Tucker County would be $740,000 per year. Just for fun, lets say that it costs $700,000,000, which is probable closer to the fact. That is $5,000,000 plus to Tucker County. Mayor Al Thomson told me that the tax revenue would be 10 million. You readers need to see these numbers because Tucker United sure won’t tell you about them. This brings me to the latest rumor about who is going to locate next to the power plant. I have heard that John Deere Farm equipment wants to put a factory there. They will build hay balers and manure spreaders. With the amount of manure that Tucker United has spread in the last 3 months, there is bound to be an excellent crop of hay for the next few years.
The April 16th Advocate had articles concerning water use at the plant. In my conversations with Mr. Chapman he told me that Fundamental would not drill any wells on the property, use any water from Beaver Creek, or will a dam to get water from. He did mention water from the Mettiki as a possible source of water. Chapman also said that air cooling would be part of the project.
The April 20th Advocate has a letter to the editor from Joe Dumire of Thomas. Joe says everything about the project is just unacceptable. Lack of water–just answered that. Noise pollution–answered by Fred Davis when he visited the 3 data centers. Air pollution–within the state and federal guidelines. Lack of good paying jobs–please refer to the previous figures on the power plant. Unfair taxes–please review the property tax quotes for the power plant. Negative view shed–Give me a break please Joe, this project is behind the landfill with a 100 foot or more wall of dirt, as well as some very tall trees. Potential oil tank explosion causing damage to both Thomas and Davis–an airplane could also drop out of sky and hit the towns at the same time. Mr. Chapman told me the tanks will be extra thick, with liners, and that they are the Mercedes of oil tanks. He said they went to great lengths to put in extra safety features to prevent problems.
The April 20th Advocate had words of wisdom from attorney Brent Easton about the state taking control of permits for power plants and data centers. After seeing the reaction of Tucker United I can see why the state did this.
The June 4th Advocate article on the plant certainly was a stretch of imagination. Where did the 10,000 acre possibility with the largest data center in the world come from? What was someone smoking when they came up with this? The permit that Fundamental has applied for cover 1 1000 mega watt power plant. This plant can only serve 12 data centers that are 75,000 mega watts.
They are buying 542 acres of land. Much of the land towards the Mettiki Mine is not useable because of the topography of the land, and the coal mines that are underneath the ground.
Tucker United has also raised concerns about temperature inversion. An article published in the January 24, 2024 Elkins paper by brad Johnson said the National weather Service has said and I quote “Canaan had a strong temperature inversion in which the Monday morning temperature in Canaan valley 37 to 38 degrees lower than at nearby points east and west” as being “pretty rad.” When I think of rad I do not associate that with being bad. This controlled by the federal government means the temperature on the floor of the valley was cooler than higher up the mountain. Backwards from normal, but it is not long lasting, as the Tucker United folks would have you believe. It is nothing to fear. So much for a scary term that actually means very little.
The other big concern from the article was the fact that 90% of the town of Davis would be within 2 miles of the data center. Fairfax County, Va. has 45 data centers, and they are the largest County in Virginia population wise with 1.1 plus million people. 70% of the data centers in the county are within 500 feet of a residential area. Article by James Jarvis for December 11, 2024. Written for ARLnow news.
The June 11th Advocate involves some very fancy footwork by Mayor Al Thomson. He is saying that there will be 150 to 300 covering 10,000 acres. As I have stated before the 10,000 acre figure is just wrong if you are saying that data centers will cover that much ground. Casey Chapman did tell me that is fundamental had to put in transmission lines and various right of ways that they could use up to 10,000 acres. But not 10,000 acres of data centers. I do not know where mayor Al got the 150 to 300 data center figure because Fundamental only has a permit for 1000 megawatts of power which would power only 12 75,000 megawatt centers. This would be those centers of 1 acre or larger.
The June 18th Advocate provided some additional new reasons not to build. John Bright was concerned about pollution and making the area some kind of dark area national park. Like Tucker County needs more federal government land in the county so that we can collect those wonderful “in lieu of” payments. We still have plenty of dark spots in the County.
The July 2nd Advocate had some novel reasons for not building, but Zina Raye’s concerns over fire suppression were over my head. I do not know what she meant. Sandra Goss said she was concerned about lack of transparency from Fundamental. Fundamental redacted what was proprietary to them, and the State upheld that that was fine. I want to open a pizza shop in Davis and I hope that Sandra will post all of her recipes on Facebook so that I use them. I don’t see that happening. Jess Tucker was concerned about limited housing. I am sure that if new people move to the area that someone will build them housing.
A couple of meeting before that Michael Goss objected to the project because he was worried about the deer. If you Google what counties in Virginia have the most Pope and Young records for bowhunter trophy kills you will find that at the top of the list is Fairfax County and around 4th is Loudoun County. These counties have 45 and 115 data centers respectually. Perhaps the bucks came there for the WiFi.
One other objection that has come up more than once is the specter of decreased property values. My oldest daughter has lived in Loudoun County for 27 years. I asked to think back to the value of their house in 2016, when the first data center was built there, and then to think of today. She said her house value is up about 40%. So much for losing value.
If just 12 data centers were built in the county, at 20 employees each, that would be 240 new jobs for the county. If 50% were janitors or security paying $20 per hour, $800 per week, or $40,000 per year, and the rest were professionals as $45 per hour, $1800 per week, or $93,600 per year, just imagine how much stuff these people could buy at places all over the county. Cobine that with the 50 workers at the power plants and you have some pretty powerful numbers.
Taxes, taxes, and more taxes. Loudoun County has 115 data centers that generate $663,000,00 dollars for their county every year. That is $5,765,277 for each center. If Tucker County could collect 50% of that it would be $2,882,638 for each center per year. Even if tucker gets just 30% of that the number is $864,792 per center. Since the power plant can support 12 centers that would be 12 X $864,792 or $10,377,498. per year to the county. Add this number to the figure of $5,000,000 for power plant, and you have a total of $15,000,000, or 2 times the current Tucker County budget. Just imagine what the county commission could accomplish with this new money.
A problem that has been mentioned a couple of times is increased traffic. According to the Tucker County Development president 150 commercial vehicles come into Tucker County each day.
Supposedly there will be 6 fuel trucks coming to the power plant at most every day. That is a 4% increase, hardly a problem. A projected 250 cars per day at the power plant and proposed data center would be spread out over a 24 hour work day. Once again, hardly a problem when you consider the amount of tourons that come to Tucker County.
The only fear that I have seen from the Tucker United group that is backed up by facts is the possible pollution numbers. There indeed will be some pollution by the plant, however it is not mentioned by anyone from Tucker United that these numbers are less than the permittable emissions allowed by the state and federal regs. The 2 pollutants that could give you trouble are benzine and nitrogen oxide. I had a conversation with Mayor Al Thomson, and invited him to a cup of coffee at Milo’s. Since they cook with gas, besides the coffee, we just get some good benzine and nitrogen oxide which are given off by gas appliances. I also invited him to Sirianni’s for lunch pizza, where besides their good pizza, we could pick extra benzine and nitrogen oxide from their gas pizza oven. I have been going to Sirianni’s for 37 years and don’t plan to stop. I like their food! For all of the Tucker United people who have gas cook stoves at home you get these fine 2 chemicals right in your own home.
These projects will not hurt tourism in Tucker County, but will provide almost 300 well paying jobs, and a ton of tax revenue researched this project and wrote this article to let the people of tucker County know the other side of this story, because you were never ever going to hear about this from Tucker United.
