Opponents pack meeting about $6 billion Oldham County data center plan

LA GRANGE, Ky. (WDRB) – Opponents of a data center planned north of La Grange packed a room Wednesday for a hearing on the technical aspects of the $6 billion facility.

The county’s Technical Review Committee is a routine step for developments from office buildings to subdivisions. The board includes no elected officials and doesn’t vote on projects, instead dealing with specific questions from water runoff to energy use.

But the standing room crowd at the Oldham County Fiscal Court building made it clear that the data center – touted as the largest such project in Kentucky history – is far from routine.

Two attorneys representing landowners raised objections to the project, saying it shouldn’t even be considered because the county’s land rules don’t allow such uses. One of those lawyers, Hank Graddy, said he has filed an appeal over the permit sought by data center representatives.

Don Erler, a critic of the proposal, told the committee that 40 minutes for audience questions on such a massive venture wasn’t enough time, especially because officials with Louisville Gas & Electric and the Oldham County Water District didn’t attend the meeting.

“We consider these proceedings to be absurd relative to the scope and magnitude of this project,” he said.

The committee’s chair, Oldham County senior planner Anna Barge, time and again asked Erler and other speakers to stick to questions about the data center’s potential impacts. She wouldn’t allow Erler’s question about the data center applicants’ development experience, for example.

“You’re allowed to disagree, but that’s not a technical question,” she said.

That drew murmurs from the crowd. “Stop censoring!” one woman yelled.

Barge also had to gavel down several people, including after she refused to grant more time for public questions than the 40 minutes allotted. That amount, she said, was twice as long as the committee normally allows.

Some in the crowd then booed. “You can boo me all you want,” she said.

Nathan Oberg, who lives near the project site and was speaking when the public comment time expired, asked Barge for two additional minutes. She declined, saying: “We’ve already granted you double the time.”

Another man then approached the podium, asking a question about where water used at the data center would be discharged. “We’ve already closed public comment. Please leave,” Barge said.

Those remarks capped more than 1 ½ hours of sometimes contentious discussion and questions about the project. Barge asked the development group, New York-based WHP, to provide answers to a host of questions on its website.

The complete meeting and all questions can be viewed here.

Hours after the meeting later, Oberg posted on the opponents' We Are Oldham County Facebook page that the meeting was a "laughable proceeding." He noted that WHP is seeking a permit to operate as a "private utility," which he said the project clearly isn't.

WHP filed plans earlier this year for a hyperscale data center campus on land zoned for agricultural and conservation uses north of La Grange. WHP representative Max Kepes told WDRB in April that his group works on land use and utility infrastructure for “several reputable end users” that he declined to identify.

Companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Google typically are among the end users for the data centers, which include large buildings filled with computers, routers and servers that handle massive amounts of data from cloud computing, artificial intelligence and other online demands.

Neighbors and other residents have pushed back against the plan, arguing it is not the proper location for a massive tech campus. They also warn of unknown environmental, noise and other effects.

Cliff Ashburner, a Louisville attorney representing the development group, said his clients have held two community meetings and built a website, leading to "significant" public outreach.

He said the site meets all of the main qualities sought by end users, including power and fiber connections. The lines running across the property are the highest-voltage in the utility's system.

Ashburner said "additional due diligence" on environmental impacts led to the current site design, which consultant Derek Triplett said calls for the nearest residential property line to be 837 feet away.

He also said the amount of green space on the site is similar to a "standard subdivision plan."

The decision whether to grant the permit lies with the county's board of adjustments.

This story may be updated.