An energy giant is set to break ground for a data center project across about 430 acres in southeast Fort Worth amid concerns about noise pollution and declining value of nearby homes and businesses.<\/p>\n
On Sept. 30, City Council members unanimously approved Black Mountain Power LLC\u2019s request to amend the zoning of 119 acres<\/a> that will allow for the project to move forward. The council previously approved related zoning changes for 312 acres.<\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s vote allows the land located at the southeast corner of Lon Stephenson Road and Forest Hill Drive to be used for light industrial.<\/p>\n In January, the company first requested council members approve a zoning change<\/a> of 141 acres to light industrial. The company then acquired an additional 171 acres, also approved by council members in June.<\/p>\n Describing it as one of the \u201clargest economic developments\u201d in Tarrant County\u2019s history, Black Mountain Energy LLC CEO Rhett Bennett said the project will benefit Fort Worth by providing millions in local taxes and thousands of job opportunities.<\/p>\n But several speakers said the project would hurt nearby businesses and natural areas, namely Weston Gardens, which sits roughly a hundred yards from the site.<\/p>\n \u201cThere will always be another opportunity for a data center in this day and time but never another place like Weston Gardens,\u201d the garden center\u2019s president Jackson Weston said.<\/p>\n Noise, light and air pollution generated by the data center will threaten the garden and its viability as a venue for the public to enjoy, said Jackson Weston and his mother, Sue Weston, the garden center\u2019s founder and owner.<\/p>\n \u201cNo one wants to go to a garden that\u2019s not peaceful and quiet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Bennett assured council members that concerns about noise and traffic congestion were taken into consideration by implementing a \u201cbuffer\u201d between the data center and nearby homes and properties. A floodplain between the data center and garden will contribute to mitigating noise disturbances, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to be thoughtful and be good neighbors regarding any noise or visibility issues,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n Jackson Weston questioned where Black Mountain Power would pull an adequate amount of water to power the digital facility, considering Weston Gardens relies on groundwater.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they\u2019re denied city water due to restrictions, will they drill wells and deplete our water table?\u201d Weston said.<\/p>\n When called to the dais, Bennett told council members Black Mountain Power has no plans to drill well water and will rely on Fort Worth\u2019s municipal water supply.<\/p>\n Depending on a project\u2019s resource needs, developers may be required to upgrade water transmission lines prior to construction, water department director Chris Harder told the council.<\/p>\n Paris Sanchez, a former landscape architect with Weston Gardens, agreed with Bennett on the benefits brought by data centers.<\/p>\n But those advantages come at \u201ctremendous\u201d environmental costs, Sanchez said, such as the amount of electricity required to power the facilities.<\/p>\n Electric consumption varies depending on the size of a data center, Mohammad Islam, University of Texas at Arlington assistant professor of computer science and engineering, told the Fort Worth Report. Data centers processing artificial intelligence, for example, require hundreds of megawatts of electricity.<\/p>\n About 16,400 homes in the United States can be powered on 100 megawatts<\/a>.<\/p>\n Increased electricity use such as that from a data center can strain local energy<\/a> infrastructure, Islam said.<\/p>\n Residents residing near thehe the data center\u2019s planned site lost power for three days during the February 2021 freeze in Texas that impacted millions, Sanchez told the council.<\/p>\n High demands for electricity, including those from constantly operating data centers and aging infrastructure, leaves the community susceptible to outages, Sanchez added.<\/p>\n While the water utility will service Black Mountain Power, data centers tend to have a greater impact on statewide resources rather than local supplies due to the amount of water required to generate electricity at this magnitude, Islam explained.<\/p>\n \u201cYou are not just getting power from one single energy source like one power plant but, rather, you are taking power from all of these different power plants,\u201d Islam said.<\/p>\n Fort Worth resident Jessica Gonzalez stressed the importance of protecting Weston Gardens as a natural area.<\/p>\n Speakers said they worry that air pollution generated by the data center will compromise residents\u2019 health, the local ecosystem and prompt habitat loss.<\/p>\n \u201cDevelopment and innovation are all inevitable \u2026 but at the same time, I think it is vitally important to protect the green spaces that we\u2019ve got,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cI\u2019m very, very concerned about the adverse effect that it could have on Weston Gardens (and) the surrounding areas \u2026 that mean so much to me and to other Fort Worthians.\u201d<\/p>\n Before unanimously approving the zoning change, council member Jeanette Martinez was echoed by council members Deborah Peoples, Elizabeth Beck and Mayor Mattie Parker in her call for Fort Worth officials to consider an ordinance that creates limits and restrictions for data centers.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m genuinely concerned about the number of data centers establishing themselves in the city of Fort Worth,\u201d Martinez said. \u201cData centers require a significant amount of energy and water to operate.\u201d<\/p>\n As part of his approval for the site plan, council member Chris Nettles, who represents the area, said he wants to ensure that Fort Worth officials meet the concerns of its residents and those in adjacent cities, such as Everman, Kennedale and Forest Hill.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is incumbent on the city of Fort Worth to make sure that, number one, we take care of the water and, number two, that we\u2019re good neighbors,\u201d Nettles said. \u201cI\u2019m very confident that the buffer will be enough to support between (Weston Gardens) versus the data center.\u201d<\/p>\n Nicole Lopez is the environment reporter for the Fort Worth Report. Contact her at\u00a0nicole.lopez@fortworthreport.org<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n This article<\/a> first appeared on Fort Worth Report<\/a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An energy giant is set to break ground for a data center project across about 430 acres in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":278746,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5138],"tags":[5229,7371,7372,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-278745","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fort-worth","10":"tag-fortworth","11":"tag-texas","12":"tag-tx","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115319738582151105","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278745","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278745"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278745\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278745"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278745"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278745"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}