State Regulators Hear Two Days Of Evidence In Appeal Of Tucker County Data Center Permits

Earlier this year, Fundamental Data’s Ridgeline Facility received air quality and construction permits from the Division of Air Quality of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Citing “trade secrets,” the DEP also approved redactions of emissions data and other information in the draft permit for the microgrid energy facility.

Citizen groups concerned about the environmental impact of the facility presented evidence this week to the Air Quality Board arguing for the release of all redacted information in the site’s air quality permit application.

Olivia Miller of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy says the permit was issued without basic information, and expert testimony from Ranajit Sahu demonstrated the need for more concrete information.

“He explained that the plant’s real emissions, on the day-to-day, will fluctuate dramatically outside of the assumptions that the DEP accepted for the permit,” she said. “Without those real measurements, in the real time measurements, this permit is basically guesswork.”

Sahu was the key witness for the citizen groups Tucker United, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, and Sierra Club that initiated the appeal against the Division of Air Quality’s issuance of the air quality permit.

Answering questions for close to three hours on Wednesday, Sahu explained that the manufacturer’s emission estimates that the application is based upon were at the upper limits for the minor pollution source application the Ridgeline facility received. However, he maintained that regular use of power turbines like those suspected to be used as part of the project would far exceed emissions limits on any given day.

“If you’re an air pollution practitioner, you know that the uncertainty in these emission estimates can be 20%, 30%, 40% 50%, 100% not slivers of 1%,” Sahu said. 

The citizen groups have maintained that the minor pollution source designation the site has received is insufficient, considering the designation does not require regular monitoring of emissions at the site.

“By taking a strategic position that I’m going to stay below major source threshold – and for reasons that have come up in testimony, which I wholeheartedly agree with, because it avoids dealing with major source modeling and VAT and monitoring and all kinds of things – you are pretending here that you can actually demonstrate that you will be below major source threshold, even under the best of times, even if you had continuous monitoring,” Sahu said. “And here you don’t even have that. You’re truly flying blind.”

Fundamental Data has maintained that the manufacturer’s estimates of emissions is the only data available until the site is functional, and therefore the only data that can be used to apply for the permit.  

The Air Quality Board will have until Feb. 2, 2026 to make its determination.