Editor's note: This story was originally published by Suncoast Searchlight.
As DeSoto County leaders have pursued what they hope will become an economic lifeline, they have accelerated reviews and embraced interpretations of county rules that help clear the way for a massive data center project whose environmental impacts remain largely unknown.
Internal emails obtained through a public records request by Suncoast Searchlight show county staff describing the review timeline as “aggressive” and saying they did not have time to follow the county’s normal review process. Instead, commissioners prioritized an application that has grown from an initial request of 34 acres into a more than 800-acre project developers claim could be one of the largest data center projects on Earth.
“We are trying to get these items to the board quickly per their direction,” Misty Servia, the county’s planning director, wrote in a May 14 email to a consultant working on the data center application. “And we don’t have time to go through the normal review and comment process.”
Among the clearest examples of the county’s eagerness to appease the developer is how officials handled a key land-use restriction in DeSoto’s growth plan that prohibits rezoning agricultural land to create power plants.
County staff accepted the developer’s argument that the rule does not apply here because their project is a private entity — not a public utility — even though it would rely on natural-gas turbines the developers say could be capable of generating up to 4 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power to sustain millions of households.
They also agreed with the developer that despite the scale of the power generation, those aspects of the project would form an “ancillary,” not primary, use of the property.
But all of that momentum could come to a sudden halt if commissioners approve plans for a proposed moratorium added to Tuesday’s agenda by Commissioner Jerod Gross.
The item calls for the County Attorney “to prepare a temporary moratorium on the acceptance, review, or approval of applications related to data center facilities” just weeks before the commission is set to vote on the project’s expansion.
The pushback is the latest in a series of similar steps by local governments across the state, joining Pasco, Nassau and Citrus counties, which have all pursued rules blocking any new data centers. City commissioners in Lakeland took steps this week to do the same.
Gross was not immediately available for comment. It’s unclear if other commissioners support the moratorium.
The conflicting signals reflect what’s at stake for the rural county, which is marked by high poverty and a declining agricultural sector.
County officials have touted the possibility that a major industrial development could help fund services and infrastructure that have long been difficult to afford. But they have faced a chorus of critics who worry the environmental and health impacts of a major data center project could outweigh its economic benefits.
“What studies have been conducted to determine the impact of this project on our regional groundwater levels, freshwater availability and saltwater intrusion risks?” Arcadia resident Alexandria Reed said at a county commission meeting earlier this month.
Even though the data center was not on the agenda, Reed was among dozens of residents who packed the room in protest of the development. They spent more than two hours raising questions and registering their opposition.
“What assurances do us, the residents, have,” Reed continued, “that the anticipated revenue will be sufficient enough to offset the infrastructure costs and public service demands created by the facility?”
Those concerns are reflected around the state, where rural communities are rejecting data center proposals and imposing temporary bans.
“You don’t want to jump out of the airplane and find out your parachute ain’t working,” said Ed Johnson, a former DeSoto County commissioner who has been campaigning for the county to adopt a moratorium. “I just think they’re moving too fast, and there are too many unknowns that have not been discussed or even thought about.”
DCIP Group sought to assuage fears
When DCIP Group first approached the county several months ago about a plan to convert a decommissioned power plant into a complex of gas-powered data centers, commissioners seemed skeptical.
“They all came in asking questions first,” DCIP Group CEO Jon Brown told Suncoast Searchlight. “There was some time where they looked at it like: scale is good, scale is scary.”
During a series of one-on-one meetings with county commissioners, DCIP Group laid out an argument — one they’ve since shared in public forums and with journalists.
A slideshow promoting the project lays out key takeaways that they have sought to impart on the public and on county officials. They vow to mitigate noise, and say that the project’s natural gas-powered facilities will not draw from the local utility grid. DCIP Group has promised to utilize a “closed loop” cooling system to minimize its water use.
But facing questions about these concerns and others, the developers have evaded specifics.
In an interview with Suncoast Searchlight, Brown said the project could draw between zero and 3 million gallons of water a day, depending on how it is ultimately designed.
“We don’t know the build out,” Brown said. “It’s… very hard to have this number for you today.”
Brown acknowledged that many would find that answer unsatisfying.
Still, commissioners seem set on the project, hoping it will deliver the developers’ vision of an industrial park that underwrites the county’s budget and doesn’t bother the neighbors.
Their hopes about the data center stem from the hard reality that DeSoto County officials now face.
An agricultural area in the heart of citrus country, DeSoto was long known for orange production. But citrus greening, a disease that stunts the growth of oranges, has devastated that sector. In the past decade, citrus production there has dropped 90%, according to data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The county’s poverty rate sits at just under 22%, nearly double the state average of 12%.
Records show county clearing hurdles for developers
Until a late push to consider a moratorium, commissioners had urged county planners to move quickly on every facet of the project.
In addition to the sped-up timeline, DeSoto officials have also allowed DCIP Group to avoid part of the county’s growth plan regulating electrical generation facilities.
The county’s plan prohibits DeSoto officials from rezoning agricultural land to accommodate the creation of new power plants.
The rule could have thrown a major hurdle in the path of the data center developers, whose proposed facilities would be run primarily on power generated from natural gas, and would require building numerous gas turbines. Both parties discussed the need to pitch the project as something different than a traditional power plant and how to control local backlash, according to AI-generated notes from a virtual meeting held between county planners and DCIP Group, which Suncoast Searchlight obtained through a public records request.
“John and Misty discussed the challenges of the current land use policies regarding power plants in agricultural areas and the need to provide the board with clear and strong ammunition for decision-making,” reads one section of the meeting notes. “The group considered holding a neighborhood meeting to address concerns, with John suggesting a virtual format to manage potential opposition.”
“Misty” likely refers to county planning director Misty Servia. It is unclear to which John the meeting notes refer.
During a March county commission meeting, Kerri Burns, a consultant for DCIP Group, read aloud the definition of “electrical generating facilities” in the county’s growth plan.
“This land use category is intended for electrical power generating facilities, which includes electric power plants and related facilities,” she read. “This public service use includes directly related facilities for the production of electricity.”
Because the company’s power will be “generated on site to be used on site for the consumers at the data center,” it is not a public service, and should not be regulated in the same manner, Burns said.
Researcher warns of risk as opposition grows
But Michael Cork, a Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health researcher who studies the impacts of gas-powered data centers, said these projects should not be viewed differently from public service power plants.
“A data center with an onsite gas turbine is functionally a power plant,” Cork said. “One of the issues is it’s not always regulated like one.”
In Virginia, the largest hub for data centers in the United States, an environmental group hired Cork to conduct a study investigating the health impacts of a gas-powered data center there.
His research, which used U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s COBRA health impact model and air permits associated with the data center, found the fine particulate matter emitted by the project could result in more than $50 million in medical expenses from respiratory and cardiovascular illness in neighboring communities.
Cork said communities like DeSoto County should have access to information about the potential health and environmental impacts of gas-powered data centers.
In Virginia, he said, residents did not learn details about a similar project until it was already underway.
“Many residents were not aware that this was happening,” Cork said, “and there had been no quantification of how emissions might impact the community.”
Whether DeSoto County Commissioners choose to enact the moratorium or continue moving forward, key details about the proposed — including its water demand, emissions and full environmental impact — remain unanswered.
For critics, that uncertainty is precisely the problem.
“You are not prepared to make any decision,” Johnson, the former commissioner wrote in a sharply-worded email to current commissioners, “except for an immediate, emergency one-year moratorium, which takes our people into account.”
This story was produced by Suncoast Searchlight, a nonprofit newsroom of the Community News Collaborative serving Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto counties; and Florida Trident, a nonprofit newsroom of the Florida Center for Government Accountability. Learn more at suncoastsearchlight.org and floridatrident.org . Alice Herman is an investigative/watchdog reporter for Suncoast Searchlight. Email her at alice@suncoastsearchlight.org.
