News of a potential AI data center in the NE corner of Presidio County draws attention from military controversy-

I highly recommend subscribing (digitally or through the mail) to the Big Bend Sentinel if you have interest in anything I’m writing about here in these notes. The newspaper brings a perspective in parallel (and sometimes opposite) to what I think/write but, unlike the vast majority of the local newspapers still publishing, the content is super-informative and consistently brings items to the forefront that in a newspaper-less town would never come to attention in a credible way (Facebook is not reliably credible, sorry).

This week’s Sentinel reported in detail on a proposed AI data center facility on a “new” ranch parcel comprised of seven or eight historically separate ranches roughly bordering the eastern edge of HWY 67 S of Marfa to FM 169 (Casa Piedra Rd) eastward to the South Orient Railroad and up towards Paisano Pass at US 67/90, coming back westward to just outside of Marfa. It includes the old Marfa Army Airbase, the ranches abutting Nopal Road, the McGuire Ranch (which includes the City of Marfa sewage treatment plant and a high quality airstrip and hangars) to the tune of about 88,000 acres in total.

The company proposing to purchase the property and use at least a portion of it for a “Green Energy AI Data Center” is called Open Origin. The Sentinel article does a very good job of reporting the facts as I know them to be and a few more things I wasn’t aware of. I have no reason to believe anything in the article is false. I’m working on a post (the next post I publish) where I put down what I know about the proposal, but for starters I’d like to present my opinion on the bigger picture here.

There has been criticism of the newspaper’s reporting on the inner drama and, at times, bizarre stories coming out of the Brite Ranch lawsuit(s). I see the Brite Ranch story as related to the purchase of these other ranchesa now repackaged into one large parcel.

Regardless of your view of the drama involved in the Brite Ranch saga, the traditional ranching and livestock business today is very difficult and sustaining a large ranching operation on less than an industrial scale is supremely difficult. Money distribution is at the heart of the Brite disagreements; the value of the land holdings far surpasses any fraction of what the ranching business could generate. Any buyer(s) of the Brite Ranch would face the same economics, unless they were to subdivide the ranch or find another or additional use for the property.

In the case of Brad Kelley, who purchased multiple ranches and assembled one “Antelope Springs Ranch” now possibly being sold for industrial/technological use, he clearly purchased strategically and contiguously located ranchlands in order to combine and create one giant property; it’s unlikely that selling to a traditional ranching family was what he expected. For a property of that size, the market for buyers is most likely billionaires (like Jeff Bezos) or industrial businesses that prefer remote locations (like Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin). Whereas in the Brite situation you see a legacy family and operation deconstructing due to financial compression of their industry; in the Antelope Springs project you see a potential buyer pool of billionaire industrialists/technologists with expanding financial expectations.

The point of bringing this up at all is that this is unlikely to be the last time Presidio County gets to be shocked with a potential sale of lands that have been relatively untouched beyond cattle grazing. In fact, if the Brite Ranch is divided and some or all is sold off, we could hope for the best that traditional ranch preservation be the goal of any purchasers. But we could also see subdivision developments and/or industrial/technological development. Many great Presidio County properties have conservation easements included in their deed restrictions, however, it is the owner of the ranchlands that opts to adopt that restriction, which could reduce resale value (because it would limit a buyer’s pool to that of people who are interested in ranchland conservation). In the case of Brad Kelley, one of the largest landowners in the United States, his real estate transactions are his business and there is no loyalty to the land itself. That’s not necessarily a criticism, just the way it is the vast majority of the time.

So now it comes to the question for me- “What are you, County Commissioner. going to do about it?!”

There’s no single answer. The State of Texas doesn’t permit County Commissioners Courts (or Counties in general) to have zoning codes or land development restrictions beyond basic permitting for septic system installation on properties that are too small to contain a septic field. People or companies buying private property outside of City jurisdiction have very few restrictions on what they can do with their own property.

Fortunately, the citizens of Presidio County (and the cities) voted to approve empowering the Presidio Underground Water Conservation District with “maximum powers” under State law to regulate groundwater usage. Without going into detail (and because I am not an expert on the topic) the PCUWCD may be able to have a say in the amount of water pumped from a project like Open Origin’s proposed AI data center if there could be an impact on existing water supplies to current underground water users in the County. The PCUWCD is only as powerful as is accurate the data they can collect on existing water wells and usage, so landowners who are concerned about water table degradation should immediately contact them and cooperate in providing any data they can to the agency.

With regard to what the County Commissioners Court can do about all this- given that we have no authority to directly restrict land usage, Commissioners Courts in other Counties have used the carrot/stick approach of granting partial tax abatements in exchange for compliance with environmental demands. At this point, that’s what I see as our best option to be in getting what we want. Now you say, “But Commissioner, I don’t want this here AT ALL, much less do I want y’all to give them any type of tax break!!” And that is 100% understood on my part.

So, to close out this post, let’s back up a bit and think about “if not this development, which/what/who comes next?” That does not mean we need to be happy with or resigned to what’s being proposed. But we should think about this.

After we think about that for a while and come to grips then we need to decide what we really want. That, for me, does not include saying no to everything all the time, because that will not work every time, despite being the preferred approach for many in the community). Once we get there the leaders and community here need to find a way to get what we really want that’s obtainable.

Lastly, I am hosting Commissioner Pct 4 Office Hours this Thursday from 11 AM to 1 PM in Marfa at Larry’s Burgers, 303 E El Paso St - come on by and we can talk about any of this or other issues.

Thanks for reading -

David