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Large air conditioners push cool air into server rooms at the\u00a0Sabey Data Center in Round Rock, Texas on Monday, Aug. 11, 2025. Residents in rural counties across Texas are pushing back against new data center developments, worried about a ‘big tech invasion.’\u00a0<\/p>\n
Austin American-Statesman\/Hearst\/The Austin American-Statesman vi<\/p>\n
As data centers push into rural counties across Texas<\/a>, residents are rallying around a message that feels Texan to its core: protect our land, protect our neighbors and don’t let outsiders dictate the future of our communities.<\/p>\n Texas is primed to become the world\u2019s largest market for data centers by 2030<\/a>. There are 411 documented data centers in Texas, according to Data Center Map<\/a>, and that boom is far from slowing. In some counties, the rapid growth feels less like an opportunity and more like a threat to the places they call home.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n To many, the fight is personal. It’s about family land held for generations, quiet roads and open pasture, and the fear that the next wave of development could change the communities they’ve built faster than they can stop it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dozens of grassroots groups have formed across the state. Among them is Grimes County Citizens for Responsible Development, of which Marie Egyed is a founder.<\/p>\n “This really is an amazing story of David and Goliath and the grassroots movement,” Egyed told Chron on Monday. “We are truly being invaded by big tech.”<\/p>\n Egyed said she supports Texas leading the “the AI race.” However, small, rural communities are being asked to absorb the devastating costs of overdevelopment without enough say in what comes next.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n “I’m fighting to preserve our way of life, our dream\u2026and our rural lifestyle,” Eyged said.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Grimes County Citizens for Responsible Development hosted its first community meeting at the Iola Community Center in March. Co-founder Marie Egyed said roughly 300 people attended.<\/p>\n Google Maps Street View<\/p>\n For rural Texans, data centers threaten land, water and livelihoods\u00a0<\/p>\n In Leon County, a 16,000-person county between Houston and Dallas, residents have been fighting for months against a 900-acre 1,500-megawatt data center\u2014an industrial-scale project that would draw enough power to supply about 375,000 homes.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Standing with them is Daniel McCoslin, a self-defined grassroots conservationist and founder of Citizens for Responsible Growth in Leon County. He said his family has lived on Leon County land for ten generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n “Not only is it going to destroy a way of life that we’ve built for generations, it’s going to destroy agriculture, livestock and wildlife. There’s 11 endangered species\u2026in Leon County,” McCoslin said of the proposed Kahla data center. “People are concerned.”\u00a0<\/p>\n McCoslin has spoken with doctors, fire marshals and even data center insiders<\/a>, and the concerns are broad: animal agriculture, health risks, light pollution and fire safety.<\/p>\n “We don’t want this here,” McCoslin said of the Kahla project. “It’s a lot of pollution\u2026it’s going to affect our way of life. It’s going to affect my ability to make money.”\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Down in Grimes County, residents are bracing for another major project that could transform roughly 800 acres into a solar farm, natural gas facility and large-scale data center, as reported by KBTX 3<\/a>. For many locals, the biggest fears are similar: water, power and fire.<\/p>\n “We were so dry out here\u2026we were losing 100-year-old oak trees because we didn\u2019t have enough water to keep them alive and they’re (planning on) building things out here that (are) going to take even more water,” Egyed said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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