To win over locals, data centers pump $340M into rural Texas projects — SkimNews
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- Data center companies donated or invested more than $343 million across rural Texas over the past year, per a Texas Tribune analysis—the first such tally, and likely an undercount because not every donation is made public
- Rowan Digital Infrastructure announced a $38 million investment in Temple, including $25 million for the South Temple Water Infrastructure Capital Program and a $10 million aquifer storage and recovery project, and has promised $3 million toward rebuilding the tornado-damaged Sammons Community Center
- Google committed $4.5 million to help Vernon, a town of fewer than 10,000, fix a leaking pipeline, and donated millions more to the Haskell region for a hospital, pregnancy center, and other causes after an August dinner announcing $6 million for nonprofits in Haskell, Stamford, and Rule
- QTS Data Centers will replace Turkey's failed water tower—estimated at $3 million to $5 million—after the town of about 275 residents went without water for weeks, with city manager Lynette Findley joking it failed at 'the exact right time'
- Lancium is running a 16-mile pipeline from its campus to provide Childress, which has been under a boil-water notice for a month, with 1 million gallons of treated water per day at no cost to the town
- An August Texas Politics Project poll found 57% of Texans would oppose the construction of a data center in their communities, even as Lubbock leaders passed a 90-day moratorium on large-scale projects following a citizen-led petition and an East Texas project was pulled after backlash
- A separate Tribune analysis found Texas will forgo at least $3 billion in sales tax revenue over the next two years through exemptions for the data center industry—tax breaks rural towns say leave them with shrinking budgets and crumbling water systems
Why it matters: Rural Texas towns facing a fiscal cliff are becoming dependent on data center philanthropy to fix crumbling water systems and fund basic services, even as the state simultaneously forgoes at least $3 billion in sales tax revenue to subsidize the same industry—and 57% of Texans still oppose building data centers near them.
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