DAVIS — A Tucker County mayor said many local residents are disappointed by the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s recent decision to approve an air quality permit for the proposed Fundamental Data power plant and data center in Tucker County.

The towns of Davis and Thomas would be the most affected areas in Tucker County, as the proposed facilities are projected to be built just two miles north of both towns.

“I’m hoping that there are other permitting steps that need to be accomplished, for example analysis of the water consumption, I hope the DEP is looking at that,” Davis Mayor Al Tomson told The Inter-Mountain. “Because that is another concern the town has in particular.

“We experienced low water last year during the drought, and I know that power plants and particularly data centers use a considerable amount of water. So that’s a little bit concerning right now.”

Tomson said there were also some important items left out of the application process for the permit for the facilities, which would be spread out across 500 acres of property.

“There’s a lot of disappointment that the DEP approved the air quality permit,” Tomson said. “I know that Fundamental Data met all the criteria that the DEP had, so there wasn’t that much they could do with regards to that.

“What I’m particularly disappointed in is that the DEP did not challenge Fundamental Data on their self-determination that they were a synthetic minor permit application. Because power plants of similar size or smaller in the region, have all had to file as major permit applications. And that differentiation means that there is more study that needs to be done, particularly looking at how close people are living to where the emissions are occurring. Those kinds of things weren’t done in this application process and most of us feel like that was an important omission that the DEP allowed to occur.”

Grass-roots advocacy group Tucker United representatives told The Inter-Mountain last week that a legal appeal had been filed against the WVDEP’s decision. Tomson said this week that he and other town of Davis officials are looking to help the group.

“Legal actions are being pursued by Tucker United and the town will participate, assist, and do anything that we can to help that process, so that we can look at still trying to prevent the power plant from being built right next to the town of Davis and city of Thomas,” Tomson said. “And that’s still the big concern, the location of where they want to put the power plant that has everybody really fighting this particular issue.

“If they moved it 15 miles down the road, still in Tucker County but next to the Mount Storm power plant, I think people would be more tolerant of the issue.”

Ironically, the area where the proposed plant is to be built is the same area where the Blackwater 100 motorcycle races were held from 1975 to 1993. The event, which was known as “America’s Toughest Race,” was shut down primarily due to environmental concerns.

“Part of where they used to have the race is in the area where they want to build the plant,” Tomson said. “The race was shut down because of environmental concerns, it was tearing up the land and people were concerned about the environmental issues it was causing. But now all of a sudden it seems to be OK to put in a power plant and a large number of data centers.”

Tomson said that Fundamental Data has yet to speak to the community about the proposed project.

“It’s unfortunate that they have talked to the community because I wish, even if they didn’t say anything, they would become more aware about how people feel about the proposed project location,” Tomson said. “I think you need to be in the room to sense that.”