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MORGANTOWN- Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced the "West Virginia Responsible Data Center Distribution Plan," a 20-year development strategy for the expansion of data centers across the state, in early August. The plan was introduced by the West Virginia Department of Commerce and outlines the state's strategies to protect West Virginians data, maximize electric power and support countrywide artificial intelligence growth while addressing concerns of high water consumption and building site setbacks.
The plan is currently founded on seven core principles: forming a cohesive operation plan, statewide residential benefit, ratepayers protection from higher electricity costs, clean water regulation, community growth, grid reliability and West Virginia workforce priority.
West Virginia House Delegate and minority chair of the Energy and Public Works Committee Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, said he views a data center construction project as a "trade-off" and has to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
"Data centers bring a lot of construction jobs and a few long-term jobs, so those are real benefits to the community," he said. "Data centers bring a lot of tax revenue, and House Bill 2014 takes most of that tax revenue away from the local county where it rightfully should go, but it still allows 30% of the tax revenue to stay in the local county."
House Bill 2014 passed in the 2025 legislative session, creating the Certified Microgrid Program and additional economic incentives to drive large-scale energy companies to the state.
Hansen has concerns that HB 2014 takes away local control when enforcing zoning and ordinance laws. According to the bill, high-impact data centers cannot be subjected to county or municipal zoning, land-use ordinances, noise restrictions, building permits and local license requirements in the county it is located.
Sean Sikora of the Monongalia County Commission agreed that House Bill 2014 was unclear and took away rights from individual counties.
"Ever since HB 2014 was passed, I don't think there was a lot of attention paid to it," Sikora said. "Though, in the aftermath, I think a lot of the counties had realized and noticed the changes that occurred, and took a lot of our local control away."
While HB 2014 causes controversy for municipality rights, Sikora explained that the West Virginia High Technology Business Property Valuation Act, WV Code 11-6J, makes data centers even less attractive. The code passed in 2009 and allows high technology businesses to be taxed at salvage value, which is 5% of its original cost.
"Any personal property in Mon County, it's appraised at what it cost, its cost of acquisition. Normally, it would be assessed, which is the amount that taxes are based on, is 60% of that value. Changing that to salvage value changes that to 5%. So, you can see how that would be a drastic change in property taxes that would come to the county," Sikora said.
Sikora said that tax revenue from data centers is broken down into levying bodies, where 50% of the revenue goes to the state for the personal income tax reduction fund and 30% goes back to the county. He said that the school boards would get the highest percentage of that levy, but due to HB 2014 and WV Code 11-6J, they are also the "biggest loser."
"Assume that 50% of this building of this project is going to be at salvage value, it drives those numbers down," he said. "So overall, as a county, including all entities, would be losing about 38.5% of the property tax we generally bring in."
Hansen also had concerns about clean water protection. While he feels the development strategy cleared up previous misconceptions, Hansen stressed that any data center construction jobs must have clear coverage on how the state's natural resources are protected.
"House Bill 2014 does not speak to protection of water resources," Hansen said. "That's something that was made slightly better last session when the legislature passed a rule related to how the bill was going to be implemented. So, it requires some water resource reporting so that it can be considered when the Department of Commerce is considering clarifying one of these data centers, but it's still not protected in state code."
The release said that despite the future development of data centers in the state, preserving West Virginia's "natural beauty" is a priority.
"We do not have to choose between a thriving community and our natural beauty; careful planning lets us achieve both," the release said.
Jennie Smith, executive director of the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, said that they are "ready" to work with the Governor to bring economic growth to the state, but agree that more regulation is needed.
"This plan is a meaningful first step by the Governor and WV Department of Commerce to help safeguard our communities and natural resources," Smith said in an email to the Dominion Post. "However, I want to see these proposed principles backed by action. This is the moment to get it right. This is also the moment to start putting some teeth into HB 2014. More transparency and more protections for our water and our communities are necessary."
James Kotcon, chair of the conservation committee for the West Virginia Chapter of Sierra Club, shared concerns about increased pollution from data centers and the "secrecy" regarding the development strategy.
"They consume large amounts of water. They create significant noise and light pollution from around the area, and we see very little in the way of opportunities for local citizens to have any input into any of the decisions made," Kotcon said.
Kotcon shared concerns about increasing electricity rates, despite the release's promise to protect utility costs.
"Our local utility, Mon Power, is asking for electric rate increases to build a large, gas-fired power plant, which is almost entirely devoted to serving data centers," Kotcon said. "These rate increases are occurring in spite of House Bill 2014, that was intended to limit the exposure of local ratepayers. So, the utilities are going ahead and asking to charge us, even though the data centers are not yet confirmed and if there is no need for the facility for local consumers."
While the release promised the potential for new jobs in the county, Kotcon stressed that these centers are actually threatening long-term job opportunities.
"They're being used to replace computer programmers, looking at autonomous vehicles that might affect truck drivers, people that are in business that have jobs with billing or customer relations," he said. "The goal of these large artificial intelligence models is to replace all of those workers, and we don't really see an opportunity where they end up being a net benefit for anyone except large, out-of-state corporations."
There are 10 documented data center projects in West Virginia, two of which are currently under construction, according to datacentermap.com
Hansen feels that data centers could be beneficial to other parts of the state, depending on their impact on local neighborhoods.
"There are some locations in the state where data centers could be appropriate and protect water resources and have access to the electricity they need, so I think there are going to be some locations where these make sense, but I think they have to be consistent with local ordinances and local zoning, and they shouldn't be pushed on communities that don't want them," Hansen said.
Sikora said that he would be open to discussion for a data center in Monongalia county, but he has yet to see a proposal that would be beneficial to the area.
"From my perspective as a county official, I have to ask whether the community hosting these hundreds of acres of infrastructure and absorbing its impacts receives an adequate return, and I haven't been shown a model yet that tells me that."
Kotcon fears the impact data centers will have on the state's natural resources, and he does not see a future for them in Monongalia County.
"Some of the facilities being proposed are among the largest power plants in West Virginia, and the amount of fossil fuels consumed and the air pollution being released from those is something that threatens us all," he said. "The problem is that climate change is real, and massive consumption of fossil fuels is going to exacerbate the problems when we should be trying to transition quickly to renewable resources."
The plan in detail can be found at westvirginia.gov/industries/data-centers/.