The road to Abigail Lindsey鈥檚 house in Hays County passes through softly rolling hills. Then, the odd home starts to break up the green pasture.
A sign that reads 鈥淣O DATA CENTER鈥� faces the property across the street from her home, but there鈥檚 no one there to read it. The house on the lot is empty, and half a dozen cows graze under towering, old cedar elm and live oak trees.
鈥淭here's gonna be a freaking data center across the street,鈥� Lindsey said. 鈥溾�奧e don't have high-speed internet and there's gonna be a data center.鈥�
With the use of artificial intelligence on the rise, data centers are in high demand. They're buildings full of servers that store and move information, whether it's photos and videos, text messages or important documents. Everything in the cloud needs storage on the ground.
Data centers use a lot of energy and water, and neighbors of existing facilities have reported health issues from the air and noise pollution.
Lindsey鈥檚 family has lived in the southernmost corner of Hays County since 1994. Five years ago, after moving around a bit, she returned to raise her son, buying a house right next door to her parents and sister.
But things were different when she moved back. The city had inched closer to the land she grew up on. Technology had advanced at breakneck speed. Now, it was moving in next door.
When a data center comes to town
When Lindsey learned CloudBurst Data Centers was looking at a property across the street from her, she tried to learn as much as she could about the company.
She couldn鈥檛 find much.
is based out of Denver, but its facility outside San Marcos will be its 鈥渇lagship鈥� location. Once built, the company plans to lease the property to a client, likely to an AI firm or other tech company. The facility will have an administrative building and a data center complex, but the company already has plans to expand.
Public property records filed in Hays and Guadalupe counties show the property would be close to 90 acres.
When CloudBurst first launched, it pledged to design environmentally friendly facilities that would run entirely on renewable energy. Then, it to power this new data center with natural gas.
It was a reversal, the company said, that was necessary to guarantee reliable energy.
鈥溾�奣he state of Texas said, 鈥榃e want data centers, but we need them to find their own electricity so they don't take the power from their local communities,鈥欌�� Cynthia Thompson, CloudBurst's cofounder, said. 鈥淥nce the state catches up with the needs of the local community, we're happy to take that power from the grid. Hopefully that's green power.鈥�
Environmental concerns
Data centers require extensive cooling systems to prevent the servers from overheating. In Grandbury, Texas, residents living near a data center said they experienced .
Lindsey鈥檚 house is less than two football fields away from the CloudBurst property. She said that noise and light pollution may not only impact her family's health, but also that of the wildlife all around.
鈥娾�漌hat's it gonna do to my bees?鈥� she said of the swarm she cares for in her free time. 鈥淢y bees are doing great right now, they're thriving. Will that be the case next year?鈥�
Lindsey said she's worried about where the center would get its water, especially as the region faces ongoing drought. She also said the loss of agricultural land will hurt pollinators.
鈥溾�奍 feel like right now we're in a gold rush,鈥� she said. 鈥溾�奍t's a rush to the market because a few people are gonna make billions.鈥�
A family affair
Hays County officials organized a public workshop last month for residents to get answers from CloudBurst representatives. Before the meeting, Lindsey tried convincing neighbors to sign up to speak.
鈥溾�奍've gone door to door to people to introduce myself, hand out flyers, tell them about the meetings,鈥� she said.
Dozens of people showed up 鈥� a mix of neighbors and San Marcos residents who had heard about the development.
For Lindsey, fighting against the CloudBurst data center has become a family affair. She brought along her sister and her dad to share comments with county commissioners.
鈥溾�奛o one I spoke to wants this,鈥� she said after the meeting. 鈥淭hey're all upset. They're all devastated.鈥�
It was the first time most residents heard directly from the company, and they did not feel their concerns were addressed.
Lindsey said she still doesn't have clear answers on some key parts of the development, like what the facility would be used for and where it plans to get water.
County officials have their hands tied
After the hearing, Hays County commissioners and county officials said they couldn't do anything about the CloudBurst development.
Marcus Pacheco, director of Hays County鈥檚 Development Services Department, said the property straddles two counties. Hays officials can provide the permit only for an administrative building. The data center building and a possible gas power plant fall under Guadalupe County鈥檚 jurisdiction.
"You all spoke so passionately and you burned valuable time of your life, on a beautiful day out here, and it's gonna happen anyway."Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra
The property is also outside city limits. If it were within a city, officials there would have the power to enforce regulations to address health and safety issues.
Hays County Commissioner Walt Smith also said Texas counties have less power than cities.
鈥淭his is not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue,鈥� he said. 鈥溾�奧e are a dark skies county, but we have no ability to enforce an ordinance related to that. Only cities can do that.鈥�
Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra spoke directly to community members who shared their concerns.
"You all spoke so passionately and you burned valuable time of your life, on a beautiful day out here," he said, "and it's gonna happen anyway."
Becerra said the county has its hands tied and that the state Legislature is actively limiting county control.
鈥淲e can do absolutely nothing about it, even if we were 100% lockstep alongside you,鈥� he said. 鈥淗ow does that feel for powerless? Elections matter. State control has us hamstrung.鈥�
What comes next?
After the meeting at the Hays County Courthouse in San Marcos, Lindsey began to cry.
鈥淒evastated, destroyed, hopeless, sad. It just doesn't even describe how I feel,鈥� she said. 鈥淥ur poor commissioners [they鈥檙e] watching the wells go dry, the river run dry.鈥�
Lindsey said she was grateful the commissioners convinced CloudBurst representatives to speak and to hear the community鈥檚 concerns, but she knew the public meeting was symbolic.
Kelly Haragan, a professor at UT's School of Law who specializes in environmental law, said the development requires some permits through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
鈥淚t's very hard to get those kinds of permits denied so that a facility can't be built,鈥� she said.
CloudBurst planned to begin construction this spring and wanted to complete the first phase of development by the fall of 2026. It鈥檚 unclear what the company鈥檚 new timeline will be.
Anticipating change, Lindsey has begun taking videos of what things currently look and sound like from the edge of her property. She wants to preserve what she can from the other side of her screen.
If the data center is built, she said, at least she'll have a record of how things were before.
Lindsey sends KUT the videos through a Google Drive link.
鈥溾�奧e're doing this. We're uploading all this stuff to the cloud,鈥� she said. 鈥淵et it's taking water and land and resources and power, and ultimately, it鈥檚 gonna kill us.鈥�
