wvgazettemail.com · Mike Tony mtony@hdmediallc.com · September 5, 2026
W.Va. leaders ignore high data center public health costs | Energy and Environment | wvgazettemail.com
# WV leaders ignore high public health costs from large-scale data center development
- By Mike Tony mtony@hdmediallc.com
#### Mike Tony
- Author twitter - Author email (mtony@hdmediallc.com) - Sep 5, 2026 - 42 mins ago - 9 min to read
In this composite image, U.S. Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., and Gov. Patrick Morrisey speak at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s annual meeting and business summit at The Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, Greenbrier County on Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026. W.Va. Chamber of Commerce | Courtesy photos
West Virginia University Health System president and CEO Albert Wright Jr. introduced Gov. Patrick Morrisey to the lectern at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s 90th Annual Meeting & Business Summit Thursday by saying the governor understands “the tremendous opportunity we have to build a healthier, stronger West Virginia.”
“It is true that improving healthcare is a deep passion of mine,” Morrisey said to the crowd of West Virginia business and political leaders at the Greenbrier before lamenting “exploding healthcare costs” burdening “our friends” and “our neighbors.”
But Morrisey and a bevy of other Mountain State decisionmakers consistently did something throughout this week’s three-day summit that threatens to undermine any claim they make of being stewards of West Virginians’ health: promote large-scale data center growth in the face of widespread public opposition to it.
Hyperscale data centers are massive, typically power-hungry and water-guzzling facilities that house cloud computing, large data applications and other network infrastructure. Their rapid expansion has driven substantial demand in West Virginia and nationwide for fossil fuel-fired power and resulting greenhouse gas emissions that worsen air quality and raise health costs.
Peer-reviewed literature synthesized in a 2021 report by the Medical Society Consortium on Climate & Health, Wisconsin Health Professionals for Climate Action, and National Resources Defense Council, a global environmental advocacy group, found that, prior to the data center boom, people in the United States faced well over $820 billion in physical and mental health damages from burning fossil fuels and climate changed-related events each year.
The West Virginia Chamber of Commerce's 90th Business Summit is held at The Greenbrier resort from Wednesday to Friday, Sept. 2-4, 2026. W.Va. Chamber of Commerce | Courtesy photo
Data centers were the centerpiece of the economic development strategy put forth by Morrisey and other West Virginia leaders throughout the summit, nearly 18 months after Morrisey signed into law House Bill 2014, legislation that has drawn the ire of community residents and advocates throughout the state by removing local zoning and other regulatory control over data center projects and shielding developers from having to share critical information about their projects publicly.
During his Chamber Summit appearance Thursday, Morrisey announced two new state approvals for “high-impact” data center projects in Mason County, echoing other speakers in touting anticipated tax revenue and technological advancement benefits from the projects and pledging they wouldn’t increase West Virginian power bills.
Morrisey announced the projects would be developed by United Kingdom-headquartered Nscale — an artificial intelligence infrastructure firm — and Starwood Digital Ventures. SDV is a data center investment company and a subsidiary of Miami Beach, Florida-headquartered firm Starwood Capital Group, which focuses on private investment of global real estate.
Nscale has declared plans to build one of the world’s largest AI factories to meet global demand on a site up to 2,250 acres as part of the Monarch project, projecting the first project phase is engineered to host 1.35 gigawatts of AI computing capacity.
Developer Monarch Cloud Campus LLC has racked up West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection-issued violations for erosion and sediment control failures, leaving stream waters polluted, soils exposed and vegetation stained.
Proposed for the project has been a gas-fired, off-grid electric power generation facility consisting of 864 natural gas-fueled heat engines called reciprocating internal combustion engines, with electricity generated by the facility used to power data center operations to be located within the planned power generation campus.
In an Aug. 11 letter addressed to Monarch Cloud Campus executive William Calhoun, DEP Division of Air Quality Director Laura Crowder said a July 29 DEP investigation established that Monarch construction had violated state statutes governing control of particulate matter air pollution.
Some half-dozen Mason County residents living near the campus construction site experienced flooding on the weekend of May 23-24 after a silt fence separated at a connection point, ushering in a release of water after a weekend deluge.
In January, a report via the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's Dominici Lab was released estimating that a data center infrastructure operation planned by Purcellville, Virginia-based Fundamental Data LLC in Tucker County could inflict up to $35 million in health-related damages.
Per the report, air dispersion modeling showed that more than 250,000 people would be exposed to additional fine particulate matter, or soot, which can pierce the lungs and lead to asthma attacks, heart attacks and premature death. The findings indicate that the proposed gas turbine-powered facility would increase the concentration of air pollution in communities in Tucker County, Grant County and in neighboring Maryland and Virginia.
Fuel spills or leaks — either accidental or subsidence-induced — could enter the abandoned mine and travel through the interconnected tunnels away from the project area, possibly polluting surface and groundwater, the report indicated. The report also noted that subsidence within the project area could create pathways for escape of methane gas to the surface and into a confined space, possibly creating an explosive environment.
Fundamental Data’s planned Tucker County facility would be powered by gas-fueled turbines equipped with heat recovery steam generators, but the turbines may need to use diesel as a backup fuel source during gas pipeline failures. The facility, planned for a location off U.S. 48 near the city of Thomas, would have three diesel storage tanks holding 10 million gallons each. The application indicates there would be haul road activities and equipment leaks.
“Storing up to 3 million gallons of diesel on top of this undermined site threatens us and our neighboring communities downstream,” Amy Margolies, executive director of Tucker United, said in a statement. “These are unacceptable risks.”
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection on Wednesday told the Gazette-Mail it was reviewing the report. The Division of Air Quality issued an air quality permit for the Ridgeline project in August which the DEP said addresses the requirements of West Virginia’s air quality regulations and doesn’t determine whether a property is geotechnically suitable for development.
The DEP said that if the project requires additional environmental permits or approvals within the agency’s jurisdiction, those would be evaluated under the laws and regulations applicable to those programs.
A 2024 study by University of California Riverside, Rochester Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology researchers found that West Virginia had six of the 10 counties nationwide with the highest household data center health costs in 2023.
The University of California Riverside researcher-led study was based on an analysis of U.S. data centers’ air pollutant emissions and their public health impacts using the U.S. Env