Jackson Turner is anxious and frustrated.
He and his family are worried that a proposed data center-plus-solar project in the sand hills of southwest Kansas could turn their farmland into an industrial site, displacing them and killing their crops.
Ross Marston, Turner’s stepfather and a longtime Sandsage Prairie farmer, is afraid of what might happen when out-of-town developers realize how difficult it is to construct anything on the extremely fine, powder-dry sand hills.
“What’s going to happen when you dig this all down to sugar sand? They won’t even be able to get their equipment through it; they’ll get stuck,” Marston said.
Such skepticism and resistance is widespread. Kansans are flocking to public meetings statewide as numerous data center proposals are on the table in the aftermath of a 2025 law offering a 20-year sales tax exemption to such projects. Resident concerns about environmental and economic impact echo from border to border. Still, many residents, like Turner and his relatives, feel they’re not being fully heard.
Economic development and planning officials say the public meetings are the precursor to establishing local regulations to govern data centers, not outright approvals of any construction plans without scrutiny or analysis. One of the touted benefits of a data center was property tax revenue based on the massive amount of specialized equipment inside, but the sales tax cut could undercut revenue gains..
On the whole, Kansans are worried about big facilities using more water than what is available. According to rural policy consultant Annie Contractor in a presentation for the nonprofit Rural Assembly, a data center needs water to dissipate heat generated by humming servers and AI chips. Each 100-word AI prompt uses roughly one 16.9-ounce bottle of water for cooling needs, and large centers with evaporative cooling systems can use 5 million gallons of water per day or more.
Contractor noted that closed-loop cooling systems, such as what is proposed for Finney County’s data center project, use less water but can require chemical additives, which could taint groundwater supplies when wastewater is periodically recycled, pollution that might only become apparent after a center is decommissioned.
Ultimately, Kansans want more information about this swift-moving tech boom that is testing state zoning law and inspiring people to fill civic hearings.
WHAT IS A DATA CENTER?
Whether it’s called a digital infrastructure campus (such as the Finney County proposal) or simply a data center, these facilities are climate-controlled buildings similar to warehouses, typically constructed of reinforced materials, that house racks of cloud servers storing digital information — from AI prompts to Zoom calls to bank account numbers to medical documents. All of it and more pass through these servers.
They range in size, but according to Contractor, the current trend is to build hyperscale data centers, facilities that typically cover 10,000 square feet and can house at least 5,000 servers. Nationwide, more than 5,400 data centers are in operation, each generally using the equivalent power of about 20,000 homes.
Last year, Kansas legislators passed SB 98, which established a 20-year sales tax exemption to encourage data center development. The tax break requires a qualified firm to invest at least $250 million in a data center, maintain at least 20 new jobs at the site and commit to a 10-year utility purchase. Mandatory water restrictions are also part of the bill.
Portland, Oregon-based Triple Oak Power is seeking to build a multiphase project in the sand hills about 10 miles south of Holcomb near Sunflower Electric’s coal-fired power plant, on land where Turner and his family make their livelihood, growing triticale, sorghum and hay crops. Triple Oak Power has developments proposed in more than a dozen states, including Arkansas, where the company is facing backlash for a rural wind turbine project.
The first part of the Finney County proposal was a February application for a special use permit to rezone some agricultural land for industrial use, to allow a solar panel array. The application was submitted by Lone Bison Solar — a subsidiary of Tyr Energy Development Renewables based in Overland Park and owned by Itochu Corp. of Japan — with the intent to potentially build a 3,853-acre solar field (roughly six square miles) that would generate 330 megawatts of electricity.
Lona DuVall, the president and CEO of Finney County Economic Development Corp., said the application involves reviewing details for a proposed project, such as impacts on the Ogallala Aquifer and area wells, the effects of returning the sand hills to grass after years of agricultural use, and upgrades needed to local utility infrastructure.
At a presentation to the economic development board on April 29, DuVall said “heavy accountability” comes after a special use permit is approved, which triggers a series of steps local officials are required to take to determine if the land is suitable for the project proposed — in this case, a large industrial site on soft sand currently being held together by irrigated crops.
“Our role is not to be cheerleaders for a specific industry,” DuVall said. “There are no done deals, no construction approvals. We haven’t even seen design plans.”
The total proposed site area is more than 6,000 acres, or about nine square miles. It includes plans for battery storage for electricity generated by the solar panels, the data center itself and a natural gas-fired generating plant for additional power, all of which would be evaluated as individual projects by county boards.
The first phase of the plan, called the Sherlock Solar project, is advertised in agenda documents as producing equivalent electricity for 75,000 homes per year. If it’s approved, construction would begin next spring.
Finney County residents are not just perturbed by the thought of a concrete-and-steel industrial site replacing green farms. They’re more than a little befuddled about what’s so appealing about western Kansas.
Jesse Gronner is the CEO and co-founder of Triple Oak Power. He said this proposal is an evolution of the bigger Home Range Clean Energy project, which began in 2021 with discussions among Kearny County landowners regarding a potential wind farm.
“We don’t see a better place in the U.S., quite frankly, right now than that area of Finney, Kearny and Wichita counties,” Gronner said
According to Contractor, developers are targeting rural areas mainly for inexpensive land and access to less-stressed power grids. Admittedly, the fiber network is expanding across western Kansas. There’s established renewable energy and the space for more, along with state tax incentives.
But existing data centers have mostly been built where there’s ample water — millions of gallons a day — available for cooling all that equipment. The Ogallala Aquifer that has nourished the area for decades is, to say the least, a nonrenewable resource. The ongoing drought seems worth mentioning too.
Gronner offers an explanation of the company’s rationale that mostly touches on the “why now” part of the plan:
“What’s interesting right now in this moment in time is there’s what I consider to be a symbiosis between … how we generate and how we consume energy, and technology has evolved in such a way, and market forces have led us to a point in time, where that mission of developing sustainable energy plants is really highly relevant, let’s say, in today’s market.”
“SPP (Southwest Power Pool) and Sunflower (Electric) came up with some processes that enabled for one time only, in October of 2025, to propose quite frankly generation and load on an expedited basis, in a very rigid and disciplined study mode, but you had to be ready and you had to post significant financial capital to get into what’s called a queue for both this generation and this load. We were at that point developed enough at Home Range Clean Power and had a supportive investor that said, ‘We believe in this location, let’s get in that queue,’ and we did. That’s why we have a lot of momentum going into this project, because we were able to catch that very narrow window of opportunity with SPP and Sunflower.”
Ultimately, energy generated by the solar array would largely be used on-site, not for homes as the agenda suggests, with a later goal to bolster the power pool alongside the Holcomb coal plant.
In an email, Sunflower Electric Power spokesperson Jerri Whitley wrote that the utility is not directly involved with Triple Oak’s solar project and is not planning to purchase power from it.
Finney County Planning and Zoning Commission member Whitney Ortiz said at the board’s April 16 meeting that she cannot put a vote toward something people have concerns about, and that she wants long-term information about the project to be easily accessible to residents.
Fellow planning commissioner and Garden City orthodontist Tim Hanigan indicated his support for the project because of the potential property tax revenue from taxable parts of the site that could benefit local school districts over time. The planning and zoning board approved the initial special use permit to study the solar proposal in more detail.
Finney County commissioners also approved the special use permit at a separate meeting. Commissioners Kevin Bascue, Vicki Germann and Mike Utz wrote in individual emails that they did not want to speak about data centers and that there are no applications for a data center in Finney County at this time, even though a data center is part of the overall proposal from Triple Oak.
BEING HEARD
Across the state as of April 24, there are 18 active data centers, one being a hyperscale facility, mostly near Kansas City. Several other data center projects are planned, including two in Johnson County, one in Wyandotte County, another in Miami County and one in Barber County in south-central Kansas.
Sedgwick County and Pottawatomie County sites are also being considered as developers attempt to buy land there. Any land purchased would have to be rezoned for industrial use. Filing an application for a permit to rezone an area is subject to a public meeting as required by Kansas law.
Hundreds of Kansans have gone to public meetings in recent months to express their displeasure about having data centers located near them. At a May 4 meeting of the Gardner City Council, about 100 residents showed up to oppose a 300-acre data center site. The developer withdrew its proposal two days later.
In Sedgwick County, a March 31 hearing at the K-State Extension Center saw about 250 attendees.
Posters were created by the Sedgwick County Metropolitan Area Planning Department, using information from development consultant firm Berkeley Group, which is based in Virginia, where more than 190 data centers are operating and more than 200 are planned.
At that meeting, Metropolitan Area Planning Department Director Scott Wadle said receiving public feedback was one of the first steps toward crafting regulations for data centers in Sedgwick County. Although county officials say they have not yet received any application to rezone land for a data center, a moratorium for filing applications was recently extended.
Kansas Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi, an Andale Republican, has requested a three-year halt on data center zoning applications in Sedgwick County. More than a dozen speakers at the March 31 meeting, some wearing bright yellow shirts announcing their opposition to data centers, favored a statewide prohibition.
That sentiment was echoed among many of the 100 people at the Finney County Planning and Zoning meeting on the morning of April 16, a Thursday. An overflow room was opened for the crowd. The meeting extended through midday, meaning some had to leave before they got a chance to speak.
Those commenting were limited to three minutes, which is customary for most public meetings, whereas local officials were not given a time limit. Marston, the farmer, said it was intimidating trying to collect his thoughts in front of a large group while under a time constraint.
In the eyes of Marston and Turner, all those things made it appear as though Finney County officials were trying to avoid hearing from residents about data centers at a meeting designated for civic engagement.
Rance Schreibvogel is a science teacher at Holcomb High School and avid outdoorsman. He serves on the Kansas Wildlife Federation board of directors and is currently the state’s delegate for the National Wildlife Federation. He wants easier access to public meetings to make sure every resident with a viewpoint can be heard.
“Why don’t we have one of the meetings on a Saturday afternoon, or an evening when people that have these concerns can make it?” Schreibvogel said. “That’s what a lot of people are having concerns with.”
In her presentation, DuVall said more public meetings will be planned and details of the proposal will be on display in the Finney County Economic Development office.
A public open house for the project is set for May 19 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. at The Refinery in Garden City. Triple Oak executives and local leaders are to be on hand to answer questions.
Sean Collins is a lifelong Garden Citian working as a liaison for Triple Oak. Most of his job involves answering questions about the Home Range project. He said this project challenges him because he doesn’t always have concrete answers for peoples’ legitimate concerns. He also said he enjoys challenges.
“There’s no better way to lose trust within a community than to just shell out answers,” Collins said. “My business is communication. … That’s what I’m here for, is to answer all the questions I can. I will be much happier when we have all of the answers, so that I can provide those in conversation.”
Collins staffs an office for the Home Range project at 122 Main St. in Garden City. Visitors are welcome from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. Monday to Thursday.
RAREST AND RICHEST
At the March 31 meeting in Wichita, Sedgwick County resident and business owner Jordan Ungles turned his back to the officials present and addressed the audience directly.
Ungles said the way data center development is being approached now will set a trend for the future, and that Kansans should not be “bending over backwards” to help companies that view the state as an untapped economic opportunity.
“If we are the rarest of jewels, they should pay dearly to do business with us,” Ungles said.
The companies behind these facilities are owned by some of the richest corporate conglomerates on the planet. For example, Triple Oak Power, founded in 2020, was purchased in 2023 by Energy Capital Partners for an estimated $500-$750 million. Triple Oak’s estimated annual revenue ranges between $9.6 and $50 million.
Three Lenexa data centers are owned and operated by Dallas-based DataBank, which has about 70 data centers in metropolitan areas across the country. DataBank was acquired in 2016 by DigitalBridge, a private equity firm based in Manchester, England, with $106 billion in global assets.
U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, said he understands concerns about data centers and arguments that they can help with economic growth.
“There’s certainly an effort afoot to make sure that any of these data centers produce their own energy so they’re not increasing the cost to the consumer,” Moran said at an April 8 event promoting a new ground beef plant in Garden City. “I think where this starts is that the local citizens have an opportunity to hear from the developers, from the businesses themselves, ‘What does this mean?’ and decide whether they’re comfortable with it.”
Turner and his family are not comfortable with a project that, if undertaken, would displace them. Marston’s main worry is what might happen if the project is abandoned halfway through construction.
“The solar panels, I guarantee you when they start falling over because the sand has eroded out away from them, or they’re buried in the sand, and everything’s blowing and they can’t stop it,” Marston said, “and tumbleweeds are blowing, and every bad thing that happens out here is happening to them. … What happens when they just give up?”
SCIENTIFIC METHOD
Marston and his family watch erosion occur almost daily.
On a blustery day, Marston can see underground pipes and the foundations of buildings being exposed to the elements as the sand blows away. Hosting crops keeps the sand from shifting drastically, but removing that top cover would mean losing a layer of protection against further erosion. Blowing sand also builds up static electricity, a fire risk, and can block vital roadways.
Tumbleweeds also pose a problem. Marston said he and his family spend quite a bit of time every year clearing dried tumbleweeds from their property. Dry vegetation is a wildfire risk; tumbleweeds can burn very quickly, and on windy days they can pile up to several feet high. Marston usually mows the dried weeds down, but if left unchecked they can become fuel for fast-moving fires.
The main worry, though, is water. Kansas law requires large-scale water users to obtain a water right in order to pump any groundwater. Brownie Wilson, with the Kansas Geological Survey, said the Ogallala Aquifer is in an overall state of decline. It’s mostly closed to new applications and permits to prevent further depletion.
“Any entity, whether it be a data center or a town, can’t just drill a well to access that water,” Wilson said. “They have to use the marketplace to find existing water rights permits and find someone to sell to them, or they buy it from a municipality or someone else who has one.”
At the March 31 Sedgwick County meeting, several residents said they were worried about data centers emptying the Equus Beds groundwater supply. Concerns about the aquifer, which has been tapped by the city of Wichita and several rural water districts, were mentioned again at an April town hall meeting on data centers.
Wilson is the database administrator for more than 1,400 Equus Bed wells. He said the Equus Beds are a “different animal” than the Ogallala, with an average depth of 30 to 40 feet compared with the Ogallala’s average depth of 400 feet. This means the Equus Beds are much quicker to recharge, but limits are still needed to preserve supply.
“The same set of rules applies to the entire state,” Wilson said. “It’s not the wild West; you can’t just go pumping out water. I’m sure if a data center is looking to come here then they have experts and consultants, probably some hydrologists doing their due diligence. If they don’t, then it’s bad practice and they won’t be in business for very long.”
Other concerns exist for wildlife. Schreibvogel is worried about migrating birds being impacted through the so-called lake effect, where waterfowl, cranes and shorebirds can be confused by large solar arrays.
“Solar panels and water polarize light reflections pretty similarly,” Schreibvogel said. “Either you get diving ducks that dive in to land and hit the solar panel and instantly die, or the birds land on it in the middle of the day in summer, where those black surfaces can reach hundreds of degrees, and then they just sit there and basically cook.”
Schreibvogel teaches his students about local ecology and the fragility of ecosystems using the scientific method. He said economic development and planning professionals would benefit from using it to analyze potential community projects.
“Good things take time,” he said. “Take the time to see other communities and how they’re affected (by similar data center projects).”
DuVall said county officials will look at every aspect of the proposal, including water use, re-wilding the sand hills, tax base impacts, employment potential and future technology trends. Scientists from the Kansas Geological Survey, K-State Extension and Southwest Kansas Groundwater Management District 3 will also be lending their expertise.
“We need to take control with this process,” DuVall said.
Turner and Marston just want to keep their family legacy alive. Turner is contacting state representatives and Sedgwick County residents who oppose data centers. They both want Kansans to have more information, and they don’t want to lose their way of life.
“In the meantime, we’ll just keep going to meetings,” Marston said.
This story previously appeared in the KLC Journal.
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