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LUFKIN — Dozens of East Texans converged at an Angelina County Commissioners Court meeting Tuesday to demand answers regarding a proposed data center project on State Highway 103 East.

The project proposed by Denver-based AmpZ Champion Data Center Holdings has drawn considerable ire in Lufkin over the last few months. Residents worry about potential light, sound, air and water pollution, as well as how this project will affect property values.

Even though Angelina County Judge Keith Wright shares those concerns, he told residents the county has no power to stop proposed data centers from being developed. In fact, another facility on Highway 103 West has already cleared major hurdles without any input from the county, he said.

“We have no authority to do a moratorium or stop any type of development in the county,” Wright said. “Texas legislators have consciously limited what counties can do, and they’ve done it on purpose. They don’t trust us.”

He called on residents to voice their concerns with the lawmakers who tied the county’s hands.

Data center projects, such as the one proposed by AmpZ, have cropped up across the state. While some communities have accepted them, others have mounted legal battles to stop them. Analysis by the Texas Tribune found at least 248 data centers are planned, including the one near Lufkin, and more than 300 that are currently operating, including one in Nacogdoches — a sister city about 20 miles north of Lufkin.

AmpZ is one of five developers Wright learned of that considered building data centers in Angelina County, Wright told the crowd in his courtroom Tuesday. He doesn’t believe they’re all feasible, but the possibility is still there.

The AmpZ project, if it moves forward, will be a massive facility planned to occupy more than 1,000 acres outside of Lufkin’s borders in Angelina County. It also could expand in the next few years, Wright said.

The data center would occupy what was once a papermill that employed nearly 600 people in Angelina County before it stopped operating in 2004. The mill was classified as a heavy industrial site.

The project could represent $1 billion in private capital investment, support 500 construction jobs and 30 full-time positions once completed, according to a fact sheet created by the city of Lufkin. It would use roughly 500 gallons of water per day, equivalent to the use of three residential homes, and would not impact the Lufkin water supply, the city stated. It also stated that the center shouldn’t impact customer electric bills.

Community demanded transparency

When news broke in February that a data center was eyeing the mill, residents coalesced to demand transparency. They didn’t want local governments to incentivize development with tax abatements, which would provide financial relief to the businesses getting started.

In mid-May, Lufkin residents held a rally before a city council meeting to voice opposition to the AmpZ project. But when they tried to address the council, they were barred from doing so because the project was not on the council’s agenda. The city’s policy limits public comments to only items on the agenda. According to KLTV, a local TV station, the city had not added the data center discussion to any agenda despite repeated requests by community members.

Angelina county commissioners attempted to rectify that by adding the data center project to this month’s agenda to allow the community to respond.

Residents called on the court to protect Angelina County.

Joel Ojeda, an Angelina County resident, said pollution is his biggest concern, but he was baffled by the lack of transparency from local governments regarding this project.

Anne Keehnen, a Nacogdoches County resident, said these centers are cropping up across the country regardless of the will or good of the communities in which they inhabit.

“I’m here to specifically ask each of you to look to your heart, pray for the strength of character, the political will, the courage to stand up against forces that other people may not understand, and to really do what is right deep in your heart,” Keehnen said.

Because AmpZ’s data center project is proposed outside of Lufkin city limits, Lufkin won’t receive tax revenues from it. AmpZ has to look to Angelina County for any tax-based incentives.

While Wright, the county judge, cannot stop the project, a proposed tax abatement may give him some leverage to negotiate protections for nearby residents.

He wants to enact various measures to mitigate potential harms, such as noise limitations, landscape buffers between the center and nearby properties, and bond requirements that would ensure the company pays for any necessary cleanup costs. But these demands would be part of business negotiations that AmpZ could ignore if it decides to build regardless of whether it receives a tax abatement.

“It would be good if the state would develop some type of construction standards that facilities have to meet,” Wright told the Texas Tribune. “That would go a long way to address some of the concerns.”

Shelley Tatum, a Democrat running for the Texas House of Representatives district 9 seat, said she grew up near the mill when it was running. She recalled its stench as a mixture of rotten eggs, wet dog and collard greens. She is not thrilled about the building’s potential return to operation – even if it’s a different type of industry.

She called on the court to deny any form of tax abatement. Doing so is the only way the county can show its distaste for the project, she said. Plus, property taxes are the only benefit residents would see from the operation.

“That data center is not going to be operating in 10 years,” she said. “Technology is developing so quickly that by the time a 10-year tax abatement runs, that facility is going to be as empty as the old paper mill is right now.”