By Mike Tony
For HDMedia
A Virginia-based company that has been quiet about its plans for massive data center complex operations in Tucker and Grant counties is again under scrutiny from West Virginia regulators.
But again, that scrutiny appears unlikely to alter the company’s plans, which have raised rampant concerns among Tucker County residents that the firm’s operations would harm the area’s environmental health and upend the area’s tourism-based economy.
A West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection head on Friday emailed a representative of Purcellville, Virginia-based Fundamental Data LLC requesting documentation verifying that the company controls the site for its planned Ridgeline facility for which the agency approved an air quality permit in August 2025.
DEP Division of Air Quality Director Laura Crowder on Friday noted in a letter to Fundamental Data representative Casey Chapman that the company indicated in its approved air quality permit application that it controls the proposed site for a gas turbine-fired power plant off U.S. 48 near the city of Thomas and town of Davis in Tucker County.
In that March 2025 application, Fundamental Data reported “an executed Purchase and Sale Agreement signed by both the Seller and Purchaser on July 19, 2024” under which Fundamental Data has control of the proposed site expected to consist of a gas-fired power plant to be located in Tucker County and data center facilities to be located in Tucker and Grant counties.
“The Division of Air Quality (DAQ) issued the permit based on that information and the certification of truth, accuracy, and completeness provided in the application,” Crowder wrote.
But Crowder noted that the DAQ recently had received correspondence raising questions regarding the ownership and “control status” of the project site.
Crowder referenced a July 1 letter from the Department of Commerce that noted a review of Tucker County records indicated the proposed parcel is owned by Western Pocahontas Properties LTD, and that in June 18 correspondence to the West Virginia Office of Energy, Chapman described the data centers contemplated for the project as remaining “conceptual.”
Community groups represented by Lewisburg-based environmental law firm Appalachian Mountain Advocates requested that the DAQ verify the site control information that Fundamental Data provided in its permit application, Crowder noted.
Crowder asked for Fundamental Data to provide a copy of the executed purchase and sale agreement referenced in the application along with any other documentation demonstrating legal control of the site.
Crowder offered that if the requested agreement or supporting documents contain trade secrets or confidential business information, Fundamental Data could assert a claim of confidentiality under state code and submit a redacted copy of the agreement “suitable for public disclosure,” with confidential information blacked out in the public version.
The DAQ director asked Fundamental Data to submit its documentation to her office by Aug. 7.
In an emailed statement provided by Fairfax, Virginia-based Khoury Public Relations and Media Group Monday night, Fundamental Data asserted that it “continues to control the project property as required under West Virginia law” and would “respond through the appropriate administrative process within the requested timeframe.”
Fundamental Data declined to provide a copy of the 2024 purchase and sale agreement requested by the DEP, saying it doesn’t “intend to publicly release confidential commercial agreements.”
Western Pocahontas Properties did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Still in the conceptual phase’
Fundamental Data further rankled Tucker County residents already wary of the project in June by claiming the project was “still in the conceptual phase” despite having secured an air quality permit 10 months prior that would allow it to emit up to 100 tons per year of nitrogen oxide that can harm the human respiratory system and contribute to acid rain.
The website for the Purcellville, Virginia-based company, Fundamental Data LLC, at fundamentaldata.com answers the question “Is the project moving forward?” for the data and energy infrastructure complex with a “Yes.”
A July 1 letter signed by Nicholas Preservati, Department of Commerce deputy secretary and state Office of Energy director, accepted Fundamental Data’s assertion that the project was “still in the conceptual phase” and that there was a possibility that the power and data components of the project won’t implicate House Bill 2014.
HB 2014 is a controversial 2025 state law governing large-scale data center and microgrid projects the Department of Commerce originally said the company was violating.
Preservati’s July 1 letter backed down from the department’s June 18 issuance of a violation notice to the company that had set a deadline for the company to apply for state certification required for high-impact data center and microgrid projects under HB 2014.
Fundamental Data had denied it was violating the statute.
The Department of Commerce had said in its June 18 letter that “it appears that” Fundamental Data was violating a state rule established in April via HB 2014 requiring developers to seek certification from the state as a “High Impact” data center by petitioning the agency via an application containing key, basic details about the project within 30 days after they become aware that they will satisfy the definition of such a project. The state rule that supports HB 2014 of 2025 requires petitioners to report:
- Proposed electrical power capacity needed to run vital computing equipment
- Proposed project acreage and location
- Estimated capital investment and project completion date
- Proximity to schools, churches, residences, businesses, sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic Landmarks as designated by the National Park Service
- “Any unique physical or geological condition” on any nearby parcel that could lead to the parcel “having an inordinate burden placed upon it” due to the proposed project and any actions planned to offset the possible burden
Preservati’s June 18 letter cited a May 18 meeting at which the letter states Fundamental Data shared project details indicating its Ridgeline project that secured a state air quality permit last year meets the definition of a high-impact data center, a category for projects to house and operate data-processing equipment that have a power capacity of at least 90 megawatts for their computing equipment.
Citing the company’s June 18 letter, Preservati acknowledged in his July 1 letter Fundamental Data’s assertion in its same-day response that it is only developing the power portion of the project and that “data centers contemplated for the project remain conceptual, and what is ultimately built will be determined by the eventual users of the power we generate.”
“These correspondences also highlight a critical and unanswered question in the microgrid and data center certification process,” Nikki Forrester, spokesperson for Tucker United, a group of Tucker County residents opposed to the project, told the Gazette-Mail last month. “When does a project move from ‘conceptual’ to ‘real’?”
DEP backed down on confidentiality claim in permit review
The DEP has backed off from pressure on Fundamental Data before.
The DEP initially challenged Fundamental Data air quality permit application redactions before backing down in May 2025 after the company objected to the agency’s challenge.
The DEP backed down from its questioning confidentiality claims made by the developer days after it objected to that questioning, asserting its significant prevalence of redacted information in its permit request qualified for confidentiality protection under state rule.
In an April 2025 letter addressed to Chapman, then-DEP General Counsel Jason Wandling said hundreds of public comments regarding that company’s proposed project had triggered a review of the company’s confidentiality claims.
The DEP indicated its Office of General Counsel wanted the company to further justify its claim that information was confidential in its then-pending air quality permit application.
But in a May 2025 response to the DEP, Chapman wrote that the DEP’s suggestion that the company may have gone too far in claiming information as confidential “appears inconsistent with applicable administrative procedures.” Fundamental Data said the agency had an unredacted version of the application before it that it should continue reviewing without pause.
Chapman contended redacted portions of its application pertained solely to specific equipment and its system configuration, which it asserted didn’t constitute emissions data.
The DEP had determined information Fundamental Data claimed as confidential may not qualify for that status because it fell under the state’s definition of types and amounts of air pollutants discharged.
Fundamental Data contended it had provided all required information and defended what Chapman called “robust measures to protect the confidentiality of our trade secrets.”
The DEP in May 2025 determined there were nonconfidential alternatives that result in a “practically enforceable method” of determining emissions from the proposed facility, including through emissions monitoring or sampling and parametric monitoring, which is monitoring of control equipment that doesn’t directly measure pollutant concentration.
The DEP approved Fundamental Data’s permit application in August despite staunch local public opposition to the project. Most of the 1,623 public comments the DEP received on the application opposed permit issuance. Residents have protested what they view in the project as an existential threat to their public health and tourism-based economy.
In January, a Tucker United-commissioned report via the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Dominici Lab was released estimating Fundamental Data’s planned operation could inflict up to $35 million in health-related damages.
Project would be one of W.Va.’s largest industrial complexes
Preservati’s June 18 letter reported that Fundamental Data had revealed at the May 18 meeting that:
- The project would include a microgrid and data center
- The gas-fired power plant for which Fundamental Data submitted an air quality permit application to the DEP is part of the microgrid and data center project
- The gas-fired power plant would be located in Tucker County and the data center facilities will be located in Tucker and Grant counties
- Fundamental Data “owns, operates, or otherwise controls” the property to be used for the project
- The first phase of the project would include roughly 800 megawatts of power generated from natural gas, 1.3 gigawatts of electricity generated from solar, and 14 data center buildings that will use over 2 gigawatts of power
- The second phase of the project would include an additional 3.1 gigawatts of gas-fired generation and a sufficient number of data center buildings to use that amount of generation
Those figures would make the project one of West Virginia’s largest industrial complexes.
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