{"id":407929,"date":"2026-08-16T07:30:31","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T07:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/407929\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T07:30:31","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T07:30:31","slug":"austin-county-residents-protest-cleanspark-data-center-in-sealy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/407929\/","title":{"rendered":"Austin County residents protest CleanSpark data center in Sealy"},"content":{"rendered":"

SEALY, Texas \u2013 Dozens of Austin County residents gathered Friday evening to protest a proposed data center in the Sealy area, arriving at a CleanSpark community meeting in tractors, trailers and trucks. They met near Trenckmann Rd and FM 949 in Sealy and caravanned to Millheim Haromonie Verein Hall where they met with CleanSpark representatives. <\/p>\n

The residents say they are concerned about how the project could affect their rural community, including water, noise, light pollution and the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not going to lay down and take it. We are here to fight,\u201d resident Lisa Hicks said.<\/p>\n

Another resident said noise and light from the development could affect the area\u2019s wildlife.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst of all, because of the noise. Secondly, we have the migratory birds that come across here, and that light and the noise is gonna disturb them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The protest comes two days after Gov. Greg Abbott announced that Google, Rowan and CleanSpark would comply with standards and guidelines<\/a> he established for data centers. Abbott has said the guardrails are working and are being implemented by data centers across Texas.<\/p>\n

CleanSpark says it is proposing a 285-megawatt data center on a roughly 270-acre property, but only about 10 acres would be used for the actual facility.<\/p>\n

CleanSpark Chief Business Officer Harry Sudocks said the company would build its own substation and pay the utility for necessary upgrades to serve the project.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is a lot of power,\u201d Sudocks said. \u201cIt sounds like a lot of power, but ultimately, the way that we work with the grid is that we pay our own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

The company also says the data center would use a closed-loop cooling system and consume less than 10 homes\u2019 worth of water per day for operations. CleanSpark expects the project to generate millions of dollars in tax revenue for the county and school district.<\/p>\n

Residents have also raised concerns about a battery energy storage system, or BESS, located nearby.<\/p>\n

Hicks said she discovered the system while investigating development in the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had the BESS, Battery Energy Storage System, already in place and intact, up and running with that low infrasound,\u201d Hicks said.<\/p>\n

CleanSpark says the BESS is a separate project on a different piece of land that was in place before the company purchased its property. Sudocks said it has a different owner and developer and is not part of CleanSpark\u2019s project.<\/p>\n

Despite meeting with CleanSpark representatives, residents say they remain concerned about the proposed data center and its potential impact on their community.<\/p>\n

CleanSpark says it expects to learn more about the governor\u2019s audit process within the coming months. The company says it needs certainty about power availability before breaking ground, and construction would take approximately 16 to 18 months once it begins.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SEALY, Texas \u2013 Dozens of Austin County residents gathered Friday evening to protest a proposed data center in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":407930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,11324,134,133,142681,5421,1750,142682],"class_list":["post-407929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-county","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-cleanspark","tag-data-center","tag-protest","tag-sealy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=407929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/407929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/407930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=407929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=407929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=407929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}