SAN ANTONIO – Governor Greg Abbott announced Wednesday the company building two large data centers in San Antonio will comply with new state standards.
Those two data centers on the far west side, one off Omicron Drive, the other near Rogers Road, are constructing their own natural gas power plants on-site.
The News 4 I-Team was first to report on opposition from environmental groups and homeowners nearby. They’d been preparing for a public hearing to voice their concerns about the power plants being so close to their homes.
But that meeting was abruptly cancelled without explanation one day before the governor’s announcement.
As we reported in July, some residents had no idea the data center being built across from their neighborhood would include a natural gas power plant and dozens of diesel generators.
“I’m just concerned about the local environmental impact, in that, were they following regulations, is it going to be safe for my family, my daughter who was just born last year,” said David Thompson who lives right across the road from the plant.
Public Citizen and the Sierra Club claim the company, called Vantage, should have been required to get a Major Pollution Source permit, which would have forced them to engage with the public before building and install pollution controls.
But instead they claim TCEQ allowed Vantage to start building under a less stringent permit that doesn’t require those steps.
The hearing would have been an opportunity for opponents to complain about TCEQ’s process.
“This is another example of how the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality acts in ways that causes public mistrust,” said Kathryn Guerra of Public Citizen, who once worked for TCEQ and the EPA.
In a statement to the I-Team on Wednesday, TCEQ would only say: “Due to high public interest, TCEQ has extended opportunities for public input and participation. The previously scheduled public meetings will be rescheduled at a later date.”
The next day, Governor Abbott announced Vantage and other data center companies had agreed to follow the standards he established last week, when he announced a “pause” on data center projects.
At that time, it appeared the rules only applied to data centers that wanted to connect to the Texas power grid and excluded projects that are building their own power stations.
The new standards, which the governor calls guardrails, include:
Disclosing any taxpayer funded incentives they received.How much water they will use and their plans to re-use their water.How they plan to reduce impact on neighboring property owners including noise, lights and traffic.
Even with the governor’s assurances opponents of those data centers argue they won’t be protected from air pollution, and by the time the public hearing is rescheduled the construction could be finished.