Leon County

There’s a new application sitting in the County Judge’s office, and it’s a big one. Crusoe Technologies, LLC — a Denver company — wants Leon County to carve a piece of Precinct 3 into a reinvestment zone and grant it a property tax abatement to build an AI data center campus. Multiple buildings, electrical substations, banks of backup generators. The works. They’ve put a number on it: $34 billion at full build-out. That number does a lot of heavy lifting in this application, so I read the whole thing — alongside the county’s own abatement rules — to see what we’d actually get in return. The short version: not much, and they’re asking for more than our rules allow. ...

Somewhere on a highway in Leon County right now, a camera is photographing every vehicle that passes, reading the plate, and writing down where it was and when. There are fourteen of them going up across our county — in Centerville, Buffalo, Jewett, Oakwood, Normangee, Marquez, and Leona. You didn’t vote for them. Most people don’t know they exist. And you’re paying for them. If you’re not sure what an automated license plate reader even is, start here: What Is Flock Safety and an ALPR? The short version is that these aren’t ordinary security cameras — they record everyone’s movements, not just suspects’, and they feed a nationwide network that other agencies can search. ...

About once a month somebody forwards me the same idea. Have you looked at Chapter 60? The Ag Development Districts? Couldn’t the neighbors just form one of those and keep the data center out? I have. I’ve read the whole chapter more than once, section by section. And I’ll save you the suspense: a Chapter 60 Agricultural Development District can’t stop an industrial project, can’t stop a land sale, and can’t regulate what your neighbor does with his own dirt. It was never built to. Promoting it as some kind of shield would mean handing people a tool that doesn’t do the job, and one that carries a risk most folks never see coming. ...

Michael and Daniel recap the Texas Republican Convention and public forums in Matagorda and Bay City, then take a hard look at Flock Safety cameras and automated license plate readers — and the privacy and surveillance questions they raise for Texans.

If you sit through enough data center meetings, you’ll hear a line like this: “Our facility uses a closed-loop cooling system. It uses about as much water as a restaurant.” That can be true. It can also be one of the most misleading things said in these meetings. The number isn’t wrong. The problem is the numbers they leave out. A data center can use almost no water at its own fence line. But it can still be the reason hundreds of millions of gallons of water get boiled away every year. It can create a steady stream of chemical wastewater that a rural county has no way to handle. And more and more often, it brings its own power plant to town. The water and the waste don’t disappear. They just move to places nobody puts on the slide. ...

Daniel and Michael roll the tape on Wednesday’s Leon County Commissioners Court, going clip by clip through claims made by the County Judge, the Commissioners, and the County Attorney — separating what’s accurate from the misinformation and outright false statements presented to the public as fact.

Michael Rice and Daniel McCoslin connect the dots from Hill County’s historic first-in-Texas moratorium to Leon County’s 12 pending energy and battery storage projects, OpenAI’s Stargate supercluster, the SpaceX chip plant in Grimes County, and the Corpus Christi water crisis.

Twelve active ERCOT interconnection queue projects are now lined up to land in Leon County. Every one of them will introduce new fire risk profiles to a county that still has no fire marshal.

When Process Matters More Than the Outcome Over the past several months, I pushed hard for Leon County to form a 391 Planning Commission. I believed then—and still believe—that counties need better planning tools to deal with large-scale projects and growth pressures. If you’re new to what one of these is, start here: 👉 What Is a Texas Chapter 391 Planning Committee? So recently some people have asked me a fair question: ...

A recently released wildlife habitat assessment for the proposed BT Kahla Data Center project in western Leon County raises several environmental concerns that have not been widely discussed publicly. The review, conducted for the project developer and evaluated by Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD), identifies multiple protected species and sensitive habitats on the property. The report does not block the project outright. But it makes clear that the land proposed for development is far from an empty field. ...

Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) are arriving in Leon County. At least four facilities have been approved or proposed countywide, with at least two slated for ESD3. This page collects the key resources residents, first responders, and local officials need to understand the safety landscape — including what Texas law says about county oversight authority. Texas Regulatory Resources Texas Department of Insurance — State Fire Marshal’s Office BESS Safety FAQ — covers NFPA 855 requirements, thermal runaway, fire detection, suppression standards, and emergency planning obligations for facility operators in Texas. ...

Michael, Ann, and Daniel catch up on two weeks of news: the 391 Planning Commission launch, Pecan Solar & BESS breaking ground on Hwy 3, a quiet reinvestment zone approval in Robertson County, Van Zandt’s moratorium holding strong, and Grimes County learning about a massive data center with one phone call.

One of our county commissioners recently toured a data center campus in Allen, Texas that is approximately 50 megawatts in size. I was not present for that tour, and I have only heard second-hand accounts. So rather than attributing specific statements, I want to frame this carefully: If a commissioner believes that a proposed 1,500+ megawatt data center and energy complex in Leon County would be “no big deal” based on a visit to a 50 megawatt facility, that belief is based on a flawed comparison. ...

If Leon County is going to host large-scale battery energy storage systems (BESS), hyperscale data centers, or major solar projects, one thing must be non-negotiable: Developers must prove compliance with nationally recognized fire and life-safety standards before approvals, abatements, or construction proceed. These standards already exist. The question is whether Leon County will require them. This post provides: The specific national fire codes that apply to BESS and data centers Direct links so anyone can verify them A practical explanation of how enforcement works in rural counties A clarification of misinformation being spread about fire codes and small businesses Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) NFPA 855 — Installation of Stationary Energy Storage Systems NFPA 855 is the primary U.S. standard written specifically for stationary energy storage systems, including lithium-ion BESS. ...

Episode 3 of the Know Leon County podcast features a weekly wrap-up of the Commissioners Court meeting and the Jewett town hall, with Ann and Daniel joining the discussion.