Editor’s NOTE: This story about data centers from the Charleston (WVa) Gazette-Mail was shared by the West Virginia Press Association over the weekend. For folks and local policymakers in rural Northeast NC who may have questions about the effects of data centers on public health and AI concerns, give this story a good read over a cup of coffee.

By Mike Tony
For Charleston Gazette-Mail

Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., insisted that when it comes to data centers, West Virginians can have it all — and worry-free in spite of feared electric bill and water scarcity increases linked to their high power and water consumption and worsened air quality resulting from their industrial emissions.

“For crying out loud, if you’re going to come to West Virginia and you’re going to do something in West Virginia, you need to be taking care of everybody. The environment, the water, everybody. Everybody. The electricity bills, the noise, you’ve got to take care of everybody,” Justice said during a Sept. 3 speech at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s Annual Meeting & Business Summit at the Greenbrier. “And there’s a way to do it.”

How?

“Now, I don’t know all the details, but there’s an absolute way to do it,” Justice continued — without clarifying what that way might be.

But two reports released Thursday suggest West Virginia’s fossil fuel-favoring push to usher in data centers into the state as part of what Gov. Patrick Morrisey has argued is an opportunity to help the U.S. win an artificial intelligence race against China may be a threat to West Virginian lives in more ways than one.

Story’s photo shows the Mountain State’s Governor Patrick Morrisey speaking at the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce’s 90th Annual Meeting & Business Summit at the Greenbrier on Thursday, Sept. 3.

One report, from the nonpartisan nonprofit Environmental Protection Network, a group consisting of former EPA scientists and experts, found that unprecedented electricity demand for AI data centers carries significant risks to Americans’ health, with the Trump administration and Republican-controlled Congress responding to that demand by making cleaner resources harder to finance, permit and build while making coal and gas generation easier to retain or expand.

The report cited a 2024 study by University of California Riverside, Rochester Institute of Technology and California Institute of Technology researchers which found that West Virginia had six of the 10 counties nationwide with the highest household data center health costs in 2023.

Marion (highest), Mason (second-highest), Marshall (fifth-highest), Taylor (sixth-highest), Brooke (ninth-highest) and Jackson (10th-highest) all were in the top 10 counties.

The study noted that elevated health impacts can occur not only in host communities, but also in downwind communities, including those far from the data centers, due to long-range pollutant transport. But it also noted that West Virginia counties being among the most affected reflected in part the role of the state’s coal-fired power plants supplying electricity to data centers in neighboring Virginia.

The study found that growing demand for data centers is projected to raise the costs of their public health impacts to between $11.7 billion and $20.9 billion in 2028 — up to a 213% rise from their 2023 level — with up to 600,000 asthma symptom cases and 1,300 premature deaths in store in 2028.

The report noted that health risks are growing from fossil fuel-fired plants projected to keep operating to support data centers with the Trump administration weakening or proposing to weaken pollution and permitting safeguards — from coal ash and wastewater traveling far beyond data center fence lines to diesel generator fleets and gas turbines emitting nitrogen oxides, smog-forming volatile organic compounds and soot.

The other report released Thursday came from AI research firm Anthropic, finding that AI security threats have rapidly developed in recent months two days after now-ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, in a X post thread that had been viewed more than 64 million times as of Friday morning, announced he was quitting the company in protest of what he said was it and AI research and deployment firm OpenAI “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”

“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” Coxon’s account posted, prompting other current and former researchers at Anthropic and Google DeepMind, another AI research firm, to agree that AI poses a grave near-term threat to destroy the human race.

“Jacob is correct here—we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade,” Anthropic alignment science lead Evan Hubinger posted Tuesday. “I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to.”

The report from Anthropic found criminal hacking enterprises, Chinese security officials, Russia-tied surveillance agents and Yemen-based arms manufacturers have, via fraudulent accounts, accessed some of the firm’s high-level AI assistants, known as Claude.

Anthropic reported it discovered five cases in recent months in which scientists in unspecified foreign nations used its models to study dangerous pathogens, potentially for biological weapons research.

In a deal linked to millions in state taxpayer support, a six-year, 460-megawatt deal was struck between United Kingdom-headquartered artificial intelligence infrastructure firm Nscale and Anthropic under which the latter is to rent computing power from the former in a Mason County setup expected to come online in late 2027, a source familiar with the agreement told the Gazette-Mail last month.

The new Monarch Compute Campus under Nscale is planned to be a 1.35-gigawatt data center and 2-gigawatt natural gas power plant. The state’s support for the planned campus dates back to a 2023 West Virginia Economic Development Authority $62.5 million forgivable loan approval for Mountaineer GigaSystem LLC, an affiliate of Houston-based Fidelis New Energy LLC which was formed to develop a hydrogen production facility in the Point Pleasant area.

In March 2026, Nscale, a United Kingdom-based artificial intelligence infrastructure company founded in 2024, announced it acquired American Intelligence & Power Corporation, an AI infrastructure firm affiliated with Fidelis New Energy that had been behind plans for the computing campus.

Project developers indicated to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection this year Mountaineer GigaSystem project shifted from hydrogen production and the construction of a planned biomass and carbon-capture plant to setting up advanced computing data centers.

Morrisey on Sept. 3 announced that his Department of Commerce had certified the Nscale project under the state’s “high-impact” data center program established through House Bill 2014, legislation his administration proposed and pushed to fast-track data center development by stripping local governments of control over project approval and siting.

But developer Monarch Cloud Campus LLC has racked up West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection-issued violations for erosion and sediment control failures.

HB 2014 has drawn vehement opposition from community and environmental advocates in part for deeming confidential all petitions seeking certification of a high-impact data center, which could be any data storage or equipment facility with a critical power demand of at least 90 megawatts.

HB 2014 mandates that any information provided by a data center that it identifies as confidential business information is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. 

Insufficient opportunity for public input was a key reason cited by community advocates in their Tuesday announcement of a new collective, the West Virginia Data Center Accountability Project, which it said in a news release “opposes the unchecked buildout of data centers overriding our communities.”

Behind a slogan of “Community Over Computers,” the collective drew statements of support from leaders of the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, a Charleston-based progressive advocacy organization, the West Virginia Chapter of the Sierra Club, West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and local groups that have grown in opposition to data center plans in the counties they’re named after, like Tucker United, Putnam United and Mason WV United.

“We stand united with communities around the state who demand a say in data center developments that will forever alter their homes,” Tucker United director Amy Margolies said in a statement. “We support economic growth, but it must be on our terms and in a way that benefits our communities. HB 2014 takes away our right to make our own decisions and shape the future we want to see.”

Nscale did not respond to a request for comment on Coxon’s X posts.

In response to a request for comment on Coxon’s X posts Thursday, Morrisey’s office said in a statement that “[c]oncerns about the safety and security of rapidly advancing artificial intelligence should be taken seriously.

“West Virginia’s responsibility is to ensure development in our state is done responsibly, protects ratepayers, and benefits our communities,” the office said in a statement provided by spokesperson Lars Dalseide.

Dalseide did not respond when asked for an update on a Department of Commerce plan to form a council comprised of representatives of academia, local government, conservation groups, industry and utility providers to develop statewide standards for property setbacks, noise mitigation, site security and proximity to sensitive locations like residential neighborhoods and schools.

The idea to create a council has been floated for months by Data Economy Office director Chris Morris and was included in a list of state “data center principles” released last month. 

Data center oversight paths of W.Va., other states diverging

The Environmental Protection Network report released Thursday laments that communities “are being left with less information, less say, and less recourse” as data center projects advance with nondisclosure agreements and faster review processes that can limit what residents know and when they can give input.

Other states have taken steps to provide communities with more information and climate protection instead of less.

Passed in October 2025, California Assembly Bill 1370 bars members of its Legislature from entering nondisclosure agreements relating to the drafting, negotiation or discussion of proposed legislation, though it allows an exception for such agreements that prevent only the disclosure of trade secrets.

Passed in June 2025, Minnesota House Bill 16 requires that the Minnesota Public Service Commission evaluate whether “the electricity to be provided by the utility to a very large customer achieves each quantitative benchmark of the state’s [clean] electricity standards,” as shown by a plan submitted by the utility to serve the additional demand without having to request a delay or change the standards.

An executive order issued by Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey on Tuesday requires data center projects with peak electricity demand over 25 megawatts to submit a community benefits agreement with stakeholders as identified in and aligned with state Office of Environmental Justice and Equity community benefit plan standards — and prior to filing a community benefit agreement, to consult with that office.

Nondisclosure agreements with a data center project are prohibited for all permitting-related agencies except as otherwise provided by law under Healey’s order.

The Morrisey administration, in contrast, has touted the nondisclosure-oriented HB 2014, which requires utilities to maintain their generating units to be able to self-generate power and achieve at least a 69% capacity factor — a measure of how often a plant runs at full capacity.

Although a 69% capacity factor isn’t required if doing so would increase electric charges above an established rate, energy experts, ratepayer allies and even Appalachian Power representatives have said a 69% capacity factor target set by the PSC for West Virginia’s coal-fired plants in recent years has encouraged uneconomic use of the plants that cost utility customers.

West Virginia has been an outlier in its enduring reliance on coal-fired power as other states shift to lower-cost renewable and gas resources.

Morrisey not heeding solar speed ‘without public input’

Morrisey doubled down on coal, gas and nuclear, an energy source that relies on a finite supply of uranium and releases radioactive waste, in a news conference Tuesday in which he announced West Virginia is under U.S. Department of Energy consideration to host a Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus, a federal effort to grow U.S. advanced nuclear energy through campuses that support activities throughout the nuclear fuel life cycle, including enriching uranium, converting it into fuel, reprocessing used fuel and disposing of nuclear waste.

When asked about the potential for solar energy buildout at Tuesday’s news conference, Morrisey said that “all forms of energy are going to be considered” but added that coal, gas and nuclear “have the ability to move fastest.”

“We’re probably going to grow fastest in those three categories,” Morrisey said.

But it’s solar power generation, not nuclear, that the U.S. Energy Information Administration has projected to drive electricity generation growth in the coming years, consistent with a rapid buildout of solar sources in recent years.

The EIA projected in January that nearly 70 gigawatts of new solar generating capacity projects are scheduled to come online in 2026 and 2027, a 49% increase in U.S. solar operating capacity compared with the end of 2025.

A 2023 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine report found that the earliest time frame for U.S. commercialization of some advanced nuclear reactors would be in the mid-2030s.

“Whatever virtues nuclear power may have, ‘moving fast’ is not one of them,” Sean O’Leary, senior researcher at the Ohio River Valley Institute, a pro-sustainable energy think tank, said in response to Morrisey’s comments.

O’Leary recalled past Department of Energy pushes for energy buildouts that have stalled, including a 2019 department statement that said West Virginia factored into the U.S. being on “the cusp of an Appalachian petrochemical renaissance” and the DOE’s backing of the Appalachian Regional Clean Hydrogen Hub, a planned energy and economic development hub that has shed project partners since the DOE selected it to receive up to $925 million in 2023.

“The problem with these abortive DOE announcements is that they lead states to invest local resources in their pursuit, as happened in West Virginia with both the petrochemical and the hydrogen initiatives,” O’Leary said. “And those resources end up being squandered with little or nothing to show for the effort. We shouldn’t make that mistake again.”

The DOE has declined to provide West Virginia’s Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campus program application or signed memorandum of understanding to participate in the initiative. The Governor’s Office has not responded to requests for them.

The DOE request for information for establishment of Nuclear Lifecycle Innovation Campuses asked applicants to propose host sites within their states, considering existing nuclear infrastructure, proximity to DOE sites, land availability, zoning and environmental suitability, to name potential private-sector partners and explain how they would approach regulatory oversight.

Dalseide did not respond when asked what potential West Virginia sites are under consideration to host a campus.

Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Utah — other states that have been selected as initial contenders to further explore hosting campuses — have published their responses to the DOE request for information.

The request for information noted that Innovation Campuses may host nuclear-powered data centers “to support high-performance computing for national security, scientific research, and commercial applications,” requiring liquid cooling for high-density servers, robust cyber infrastructure like quantum-resistant encryption and acres of land.

The DOE did not respond when asked for a time frame for a decision on state campus selection.

“Families here worry about their well water, about noise that never stops, about their health from air pollution, and about electric bills going up to pay for power these companies need,” Rupok Bhuiyan, member of No Data Centers in the Eastern Panhandle, said in a statement. “HB 2014 took away our local control before most of us even knew what was coming.”

“These projects are moving incredibly fast, and without public input,” Olivia Miller, interim executive director of the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, said in a statement. “Bottom line, West Virginians deserve a real voice in what happens in their communities. We have a responsibility to make sure our natural resources are still here for future generations, and we should not be asked to sacrifice them in the rush to build data centers.”

Read more from HDMedia, here.