The DEP late Friday afternoon announced its finding the facility proposed by Purcellville, Virginia-based Fundamental Data LLC would meet all state and federal air quality regulations, acknowledging in a final determination document that most of the 1,623 public comments it received opposed permit issuance.
MORE INFORMATION ON AIR QUALITY PERMIT
Documents regarding the application, including the final permit, the DEP’s final determination on the application and its response to comments, are available at bit.ly/AirPermitApplications.
Fundamental Data’s application doesn’t include a data center, a nondisclosure the DEP previously said wasn’t a cause to deny the permit. But despite significant redactions in the permit application, enough planned facility details have been revealed to suggest it would be a large-scale data center site with vast diesel tank storage and a substantial increase in local air pollution.
Fundamental Data representative Casey Chapman did not respond to requests for comment.
The DEP asserted it lacked the regulatory framework to address project opponents’ concerns about pollution projected from the planned facility. The agency defended its categorization of the proposed facility as a “minor source,” a designation for sources that emit below a certain threshold, drawing less stringent state oversight.
Because Fundamental Data hasn’t reported the proposed facility as having the potential to emit more than 100 tons per year of any regulated pollutant, it’s not defined as a major stationary source. Instead, Fundamental Data has proposed the facility be permitted as a “synthetic minor facility,” a designation that includes limits on capacity to remain below major source thresholds.
But the proposed facility comes close to the 100-ton annual threshold with the potential to emit 99.35 tons per year of nitrogen oxides, which can harm the human respiratory system and contribute to acid rain.
The proposed facility also would have the potential to annually emit up to:
- 71.54 tons of fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, which can pierce the lungs and lead to asthma attacks, heart attacks and premature death
- 58.89 tons of sulfur dioxide, which can blow hundreds of miles away and reduce lung function
- 56.36 tons of carbon monoxide, which can cause nausea, fatigue and other flu-like symptoms at very low levels
- 44.21 tons of ozone, which can reduce lung function through long-term exposure
Tucker County residents and leaders had urged the DEP to pursue air dispersion modeling for the facility. But in its response to comments released Friday, the DEP noted it doesn’t require modeling for new minor sources.
In that response, the DEP called dispersion modeling “resource intensive” and said it therefore uses federally established major-source thresholds for determining when modeling is required.
Davis Mayor Al Tomson has been among the many project critics who have urged the DEP to conduct air dispersion modeling.
Tomson called the DEP’s decision to approve the permit “deeply disappointing, though unfortunately not surprising” and reiterated his opposition to the minor-source categorization in an email Saturday.
“The DEP’s decision to allow such a classification is egregious,” Tomson said. “While Fundamental Data secures its permit, the residents of Davis, Thomas, and Canaan Valley are left without the thorough health and safety protections they deserve. The central question remains: does the DEP serve the public interest — or the interests of industry?”
DEP OVERRIDES CONSERVATIONIST CONCERNS
Fundamental Data’s planned Tucker County facility would be powered by gas-fueled turbines equipped with heat recovery steam generators, but the turbines may need to use diesel as a backup fuel source during gas pipeline failures. The facility, planned for a location off U.S. 48 near the city of Thomas, would have three diesel storage tanks holding 10 million gallons each. The application indicates there would be haul road activities and equipment leaks.
Operation startup is planned for 2027 or 2028 but is subject to change depending on availability of equipment from manufacturers, according to the application filed in March.
DATA CENTER ADVANCEMENT SPARKING ENVIRONMENTAL, ECONOMIC CONCERNS THROUGHOUT WV
Fifteen-year Tucker County resident Sheena Williams told the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection her child has asthma.
In its response to comments, the DEP acknowledged concerns about the planned facility’s potential impact on nearby areas like Blackwater Falls and Dolly Sods Wilderness, a 17,000-plus-acre section of the Monongahela National Forest. The DEP responded by saying the purpose of a “synthetic minor” designation is to hold the applicant to restrictions to stay below major-source thresholds.
Organizations that submitted comments included Friends of Blackwater, a Tucker County-based conservation group; the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy; the West Virginia Rivers Coalition; the West Virginia Environmental Council; and the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Another group submitting comment was Tucker United, a local citizen organization. In June, Tucker United, Friends of Blackwater and the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy appealed the Division of Air Quality’s acceptance of claims of confidentiality made by Fundamental Data in its permit application.
That pending appeal was filed with the West Virginia Air Quality Board, which hears appeals of DEP air quality enforcement decisions.
The groups contended in their appeal the DEP’s May decision to accept the confidentiality claims in their original redacted form “lacks any meaningful analysis or scrutiny,” instead embracing Fundamental Data assertions responding to the DEP’s initial concern about the redactions as fact.
DEP TOUTS 'ALTERNATIVES' TO REDACTED PROJECT INFORMATION
In an April 25 letter addressed to Fundamental Data “responsible official” Casey Chapman, DEP General Counsel Jason Wandling said hundreds of public comments regarding that company’s proposed project, which has drawn heavy opposition among Tucker County residents and officials, had triggered a review of the company’s confidentiality claims.
Wandling told the company there was “concern” the confidentiality claims may not meet eligibility requirements under state legislative rules.
In a May 7 response, Chapman wrote that the DEP’s suggestion that the company may have gone too far in claiming information as confidential “appears inconsistent with applicable administrative procedures.” Fundamental Data said the agency had an unredacted version of the application before it that it should continue reviewing without pause.
Chapman contended redacted portions of its application pertain solely to specific equipment and its system configuration, which it asserted don’t constitute emissions data.
DEP OKS CONFIDENTIALITY CLAIMS IN EXPECTED DATA CENTER PROJECTS' AIR PERMIT REQUESTS
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection has allowed developers of what it identified as data center projects to keep substantial project information confidential in pending air quality permit applications, including one for a project in Tucker County that has raised environmental health concerns.
The DEP had determined information Fundamental Data claimed as confidential may not qualify for that status because it fell under the state’s definition of types and amounts of air pollutants discharged.
Fundamental Data contended it had provided all required information and defended what Chapman called “robust measures to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets.”
Chapman said Fundamental Data “understand[s] that public interest in the project has increased” and that the public “should not assume that redacting information from the public version of our application is an attempt to hide relevant data.”
In what he called an attempt “to provide some comfort to the public,” Chapman said the planned “Ridgeline” facility:
- Doesn’t plan any consumption or use of water resources from or discharge of wastewater to local rivers, streams or municipal systems
- Is sited in a lowland area surrounded by hills that should “substantially limit” visibility of the plant from public roadways or populated areas
- Is expected to operate at noise levels below the threshold requiring hearing protection under federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration protections and is over one mile from the nearest occupied structure
PERMIT APPROVAL COMES AMID STATE DATA CENTER PUSH
The DEP said in a final determination document released Friday it made changes to Fundamental Data’s draft permit based on public comments, though those changes are minor and don’t assuage project critics’ concerns about the agency’s lack of air dispersion modeling, acceptance of company confidentiality claims and minor-source approach to the application.
Those changes include requiring aggregate natural gas and diesel consumption to be monitored hourly instead of daily and the gross energy output of each combustion turbine to be monitored continuously.
The DEP held public meetings on June 30 and July 17 on the permit application. The former was a four-plus-hour, packed in-person meeting to answer questions about the application from a large crowd at Canaan Valley Resort State Park. The latter was a virtual meeting to take official public comments only, rather than respond to any questions.
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection public meetings on air quality permit applications have routinely drawn concerns in recent years that the DEP doesn’t adequately safeguard environmental health.
The DEP’s approval comes as it considers pending air quality permit applications for planned data center operations in Mingo and Mason counties.
In April, Gov. Patrick Morrisey signed House Bill 2014, a law designed to ease in-state data center development in part by prohibiting counties and municipalities from enforcing or adopting regulations that limit creation, development or operation of any certified microgrid district or high-impact data center project. Morrisey hailed HB 2014 as the economic development highlight of the West Virginia Legislature’s 2025 regular legislative session.
“I'm concerned that ... we are going to be railroaded by politicians and wealthy investors in data centers unfairly,” Barbara Weaner, a family nurse practitioner and 49-year Tucker County resident, said at the July 17 public comment meeting. “And I want the DEP to stick up for us.”
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