Johnson County officials take hard stance on data centers. But will it matter?
The Johnson County Commissioners Court had a clear, direct message Monday night for data center developers looking buy land and move into the area:
“We don’t want them,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Larry Woolley said during the special meeting. “We don’t have room for them. We don’t need them.”
That statement came after a presentation by Rita Beving of the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. Speaking to a packed courtroom, Beving laid out a list of concerns related to data centers, ranging from their environmental impact to their potential impact on peace and tranquility.
Beving warned about the dangers of air pollution emanating from data centers that are colocated with natural gas power plants, and she talked about the nuisance of noise pollution and disruptive vibrations caused by whirring equipment in those facilities.
Beving also listed the types of heavy metals and chemicals, including PFAS, that leach into the water used to cool chips in data center server racks.
There is a significant concern in Johnson County about PFAS — or synthetic ‘forever chemicals’ — which don’t break down in the environment and are linked to serious health issues like cancer. In February, the Johnson County commissioners issued a disaster declaration after PFAS chemicals were discovered in soil, water and animal tissue samples collected from agricultural land on which fertilizer made from sewage sludge was used.
A year earlier, five farmers near Grandview sued Synagro Technologies, Inc., the company that produces the fertilizer, over livestock deaths and birth defects they believe were caused by PFAS chemicals. The farmers also sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for failing to adequately regulate the forever chemicals.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Rick Bailey said he understands the community’s opposition to having data centers in Johnson County, but he said commissioners are limited in what they can legally do to stop them from coming.
Gov. Greg Abbott and members of the state legislature have welcomed data centers to Texas in a push to capitalize on the new digital economy, and if state leaders want them here, they’ll be here, warned Bailey. He pointed to the situation in nearby Hood County, where commissioners tried to pass a moratorium on data center development only to have Texas Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston) declare that illegal.
If county governments oppose the state legislature, Bailey said, commissioners run the risk of being removed from office.
Still, that argument didn’t sit well with some in attendance on Monday, the vast majority of whom raised their hands when asked if they were against data centers in Johnson County.
The county has long been known for its farms and ranches, which make up about 62% of its 463,000 acres.
County resident Jenna Thomas, who said she works in the environmental science field, firmly opposes data centers, and she said it shouldn’t matter whether the governor or other Texas politicians want them — it should come down to what the people want.
“At the end of the day, the government works for us,” Thomas said. “We elected all of these people, and I hope everybody remembers this come reelection time.”
After the meeting, Woolley spoke about the problems county officials face when standing up to data centers.
“I hear from people all the time who say ‘just say no,’” Woolley said. “Well, we can say no, but that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen, because the state legislature does not give counties any regulatory authority over land use other than through subdivision rules. And that only affects tracts of land that are 10 acres or less.”
Woolley said data center developers can come into a county and buy up hundreds or thousands of acres and get permits without the project ever coming before the commissioners court — until the data center developers ask for tax breaks.
Tax abatements for data centers are controversial, but they do give cities and counties a mechanism for controlling what data center developers do. During the meeting, Bailey even mentioned requiring developers to obtain a surety bond to cover costs associated with environmental cleanup before they can receive tax incentives from Johnson County for data centers.
“That’s the offset,” said Woolley. “If there’s no tax abatement, then there’s no negotiating whatsoever as far as rogue use or any kind of limitations we can place on them.”
Woolley said the Johnson County commissioners had already rejected two data center tax abatement requests, and he said he hoped to make the county appear as unattractive as possible to future developers looking to place data centers there.
“Our court’s pretty unified on not supporting these things that are going to disrupt our rural landscape. We may not prevent them from happening, but we’re not going to pave the way for them, either.”
This story was originally published May 11, 2026 at 9:05 PM.