Last month, the West Virginia Department of Commerce demanded that a data center developer operating in Tucker County disclose key details about a project locals say has been shrouded in secrecy, rumor and hearsay.
Then on July 1, the Department of Commerce did an about-face. The company, Fundamental Data, claimed the project was conceptual, and the department agreed, finding that the company doesn’t have legal control over the piece of land set to be developed less than a mile from Davis and Thomas.
But, as citizen groups have pointed out, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection already determined that Fundamental Data did control the land and issued it an air pollution permit based partly on that information.
Now, residents of Tucker County are left confused and unable to accurately assess the status, scale or even type of project proposed in their community because different agencies of West Virginia’s government are being told different things by the developer.
West Virginia created a new approval system for massive data centers. But the Fundamental Data dispute shows no agency is responsible for evaluating an entire project from beginning to end.
Fundamental Data’s contradictory statements to different agencies have left citizens and regulators alike scrambling, said Olivia Miller, interim director for the West Virginia Highland Conservancy.
“Its ever-changing proposals have forced citizens, community organizers and state agencies to spend significant time and resources responding to what increasingly appears to be an amateurish, boom-chasing venture,” she wrote in a press release.
The West Virginia Highland Conservancy, the Sierra Club and Tucker United, a group of county residents fighting the data center, wrote a letter to the DEP asking the agency to investigate Fundamental Data’s control over the 10,000-acre property.
Additionally, they called for the DEP to revoke the permit if they found Fundamental Data does not control the land.
In 2025, when DEP took public comment on the air permit application, regulators again and again told concerned citizens that they only had authority over a natural gas plant. The agency said it could not consider the environmental implications of the data center Fundamental Data proposed their gas plant would be powering.
To be sure, different agencies in state government are responsible for their own speciality in any given project. Often, a major project has to receive approvals from different agencies, all looking at just their own piece of the pie.
But the Fundamental Data situation highlights the confusion this creates for concerned citizens, and the way a fragmented permitting system can leave significant issues and cumulative impacts on communities out of the analysis.
In this situation, the confusion is fueled by public comments made by company officials.
Just five days after the Department of Commerce rescinded its letter asking for more information, Ted McGavran, a representative of Fundamental Data, stood before his local city council in Belmont, North Carolina, to argue for zoning ordinances his own town could pass for data centers.
Nikki Forrester, a spokesperson for Tucker United, noted the irony of McGavran advocating for zoning regulations in his community, while his company could take advantage of a legal framework that bars West Virginia communities from being able to institute their own zoning laws.
“Even data center developers don’t want these things in their own backyard,” she said.
During his presentation, McGavran said his company was trying to capture large-scale clients for the Tucker County project and would generate 3-5 gigawatts of power. At no point did he indicate these were just conceptual plans on a drawing board.
He also said his company helped write the state’s data center law.
“We can do pretty much whatever we want to do up there,” McGavran said, describing the project.
Andrea Khoury, a spokesperson for Fundamental Data, disavowed McGavran’s statements.
“Mr. McGavran is not authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Any comments he may have made or may make are solely in his personal capacity and should not be attributed to Fundamental Data,” Khoury wrote in an email statement. “Accordingly, we are not in a position to comment on or characterize Mr. McGavran’s personal statements.”
Khoury also denied Fundamental Data had any hand in helping craft the data center law.
DEP and the Department of Commerce, through their respective spokesmen Terry Fletcher and Andy Malinoski, sent identical statements denying there is a discrepancy between the departments regarding the control Fundamental Data has over the land.
“West Virginia air permitting laws do not require an applicant to own the property to apply for an air permit. Applicants must demonstrate the required level of control over the proposed site, which may be established through a lease, purchase agreement, option to purchase, or another legally recognized arrangement, as appropriate,” wrote the spokesman.
“However, the Department of Commerce evaluates projects under the High Impact Data Center program using distinct statutory criteria, such as recorded deeds and binding commitments, which operate independently of WVDEP’s air permitting requirements.”
Additionally, Malinoski said McGavran’s statements do not change the Department of Commerce’s determination that the project is conceptual.
“Remarks and informal public statements do not substitute for formal regulatory filings under West Virginia law,” Malinoski said.
Tucker United says the project is all about bending the rules.
Forrester wrote in a press release, “Fundamental Data lives in the brackish zone between being a microgrid and data center-related project and not having anything to do with data centers so they can skirt regulations and state rules.”
