During a work session on Tuesday, County Planner Rob Quint informed the Logan County Commissioners that several individuals who recently applied for subdivision exemptions and right of way permits were sent a legitimate looking email, with what looks like county letterhead, telling them they needed to pay a certain amount in fees and suggests doing so through a wire transfer. Quint said six or seven statements have been sent out now, first after the projects were completed and now on the morning that the county holds hearings for the projects. Fortunately, those who have received the email have been suspicious, due to the high fee amount listed, and brought it to the attention of the Planning and Zoning Department and the department is warning new applicants about it and has reported it to the Sheriff's Office.
Commissioner Jim Yahn shared that similar phishing emails were also previously sent to individuals doing business with the Buildings and Grounds Department.
It is believed that the scammer is getting applicants contact information from the packet that is posted on the county's website with meeting agendas. At this time, the county has removed the packets attached to agendas on the website and left only the page listing the agenda. It was decided from now on to post only the resolution that goes with the application and not the full application.
If you have received a suspicious email, contact the Planning and Zoning Office at 970-522-7879.
Later, the commissioners heard from Blake Marcus, director of operations at Granite Renewables, regarding a moratorium the county plans to put in place on wind and solar, data center and battery storage projects at their next business meeting on Oct. 21. The six-month moratorium is meant to give the county time to revise its wind and solar regulations and come up with regulations for data centers and battery storage. However, Granite said it would be detrimental to their plans to build a large-scale data center (approximately two gigawatts) on privately owned land east and west of County Road 9, approximately 21 miles northwest of Sterling, coupled with on-site power generation resources and interconnections to local gas pipelines and electrical grid. It will also include a battery energy storage system as a backup power supply (pending the moratorium).
Granite asked to proceed under the existing 45-60 day special use framework, with an intent to submit a permit application at the beginning of December. According to a letter given to the commissioners, the moratorium would be detrimental as early-stage development activities are critical to the success of the project and cannot proceed without the ability to permit the project due to the moratorium.
The letter also states that a moratorium would likely require that the company forgo submitting an application to High West Energy and Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association's upcoming High Impact Load Tariff, which is scheduled to begin in early January 2026. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission/High West/Tri-State process is designed to ensure new large electricity loads, such as those from data centers, can be added to the local transmission grid without impacting current customers' rates. If Granite isn't able to apply in January, the next opportunity to submit an application would be two years away, which is too long a time period to maintain project viability.
If it is able to proceed forward, the $15 billion project would bring 50 to 100 jobs. Marcus said these are high-paying jobs, many of them extremely technical and they plan to offer resources like classes at Northeastern Junior College, on-site training and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) education for high school students. Construction labor, however, will mostly be imported because it's incredibly specialized.
Marcus said as part of their land stewardship they are designing their data centers to be minimal water usage, though they will need one to three million gallons of water to do a one-time fill or any necessary top offs. They plan to do that as a commercial fill and not take water from farmers. He also promised that there will be minimal operational noise.
Commissioner Yahn encouraged them to work with the federal government as the site is in the heart of the intercontinental federal missile site.
"One of the reasons why we were looking at this moratorium was so that we are not going back later and revising a regulation that we should have changed...we just want to do it right to begin with," Yahn explained, adding that they had no idea plans for the project were moving so quickly. "We were actually trying to say ahead of the curve by saying 'hey, we need to get data center or battery storage regulations in our planning now because we want to be ready in case anything like this comes up.'"
Commissioner Mike Brownell promised they would move as fast as possible to get regulations in place.
"It's definitely something we don't want to drag our feet on and cause issues or mess up a project that could have good definite benefits to Logan County and our citizens and provide some good economic development," he said.
"I'm not opposed to moving as quickly as we can but you have to understand, this is all new to us, we want economic development with this but we don't want to look back ten years down the road and have regrets because we did something in haste," Yahn added.
Earlier, the commissioners heard from Nathan Keiser and Leo Gorgens, of NextEra Energy, about the company's plans to upgrade some of the wind turbine hubs in Peetz probably mid-year 2027. It will require a building permit and the commissioners also asked them to complete a road agreement.
"We've done quite a few of these projects since 2019 and we've gotten a lot better at them," Keiser said, sharing that they're now able to complete these projects in about five months instead of 12 to 16 months. "So, it will be a lot less impact, I think, than the previous projects we did."
He promised to be in front of landowners very early on and make sure they are working with them as much as possible.
Keiser explained they are replacing the top part of the nacelles only, which are about 10 years old now, and the reason for that is because new technology is more efficient.
"The equipment is more efficient to where if you have a 200 megawatt project and if the wind is not blowing, you may only generate 150 megawatts but with the new equipment we've found that on a less windy day we're able to generate a lot more megawatts," he said.
They also shared that they have some battery storage regulations already drafted that may fit into Logan County's needs. They will do a small presentation on them for the commissioners next week.
In a special meeting following the work session, the commissioners approved a resolution supporting the extension of the capital improvements sales and use tax — Logan County Referred Ballot Issue #1F.
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