State Representative Drew Darby asked the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality on Monday to hold a public meeting in Tom Green County before the agency acts on four air quality permit applications tied to a proposed data center campus near Dove Creek.
The request, made in a letter to TCEQ Executive Director Kelly Keel, is the most direct state-level intervention yet in a dispute that has simmered in southwest Tom Green County since spring. The applications were filed by Westline TX Holdings, LLC, doing business as Beacon Data Centers.
Darby, a San Angelo Republican, wrote that he has heard from numerous constituents over the last several months and had hoped the company would tell residents more about its plans. “Impacted residents deserve the opportunity to be informed of, and heard on, these applications before, not after, a decision is made,” he wrote, noting the applications remain active and a decision could be issued at any time. He copied Governor Greg Abbott on the request.
The site sits about a quarter-mile south of U.S. Highway 67 on FM 2335, along Spring Creek. Beacon co-founder and executive vice president Joseph Shovlin told Tom Green County commissioners on June 2 that it includes roughly 1,240 acres of buildable land, with a buffer of more than 100 yards from the nearest property lines, and that the campus would draw power entirely from on-site natural gas generation, using the grid only for backup. He described closed-loop cooling, an on-site well and possible brackish water desalination, and estimated 1,200 construction jobs and more than 300 permanent positions.
The filings put numbers to what that generation would emit. The plain-language summary lists projected annual totals of roughly 1,177 tons of carbon monoxide, 419 tons of nitrogen oxides and 117 tons of sulfur dioxide under maximum permitted conditions, according to a review published by San Angelo LIVE! The engines would use selective catalytic reduction and oxidation catalysts, and the application is being processed on an expedited basis under state rules.
County Commissioners voted June 2 against a 12-month moratorium on large data centers and energy facilities in the area, citing doubts about their power under Texas law and the risk of litigation. Commissioner Shawn Nanny pointed to a $100 million lawsuit filed against Hill County after it adopted a similar measure.
Darby has staked out a broader position on the industry. In a May statement he said that if data centers are a future extension of Texas’ growth, “then they must be developed responsibly and conditionally,” adding that siting decisions belong to local communities because “local control is the Texas way.” He said he will push in 2027 to codify mandatory water usage reporting, steer data centers toward treated wastewater or produced water rather than West Texas aquifers, restrict foreign ownership and end blanket tax abatements.
In a separate letter the same day to Beacon CEO David Lane, Chair John Halpin and Co-Chair Josh Schertzer, Darby posed nine questions covering emissions, water sourcing, aquifer effects, site remediation, binding tax and job commitments, traffic, the buffer, future grid interconnection and how residents could raise complaints once the campus operates. He asked the company to affirm it will meet the data center standards Abbott announced this summer and to hold additional town halls.
Those standards direct the Public Utility Commission and ERCOT to audit projects before granting grid connections, a review Beacon may largely avoid because it has marketed the campus as self-powered. That leaves the TCEQ air permits as the primary state check on the project, and a public meeting, if granted, as the main formal chance for Dove Creek residents to be heard before a decision.