The proposed White Cloud Acres AI data center project associated with the Nodaway County region is valued at $4 billion to $6.3 billion, while the co-located Mullin Creek natural gas plant (440 MW) is part of Evergy’s $2.75 billion multi-facility expansion. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Project Cost Breakdown
- White Cloud Acres AI Data Center: Estimated between $4 billion and $6.3 billion in total capital investment by developers (such as Scale Microgrids), spanning multiple large-scale buildings east of U.S. Highway 71 in southern Nodaway County. [1, 2, 3]
- Mullin Creek Power Plant: The 440-megawatt simple-cycle natural gas plant planned near 340th Street and U.S. Highway 71 is tied into Evergy’s broader $2.75 billion regional infrastructure expansion program. [1, 2]
- Economic Impact Studies: Economic projections prepared for the campus estimate over $1.1 billion in local tax revenues generated across a 35-year lifespan, alongside tens of millions in construction and long-term earnings for Nodaway County. [1]
For project updates and public documentation, visit the White Cloud Acres Information Center or review regional timelines via Nodaway County Data Centers.
Opponents
The principal opponents to the White Cloud Acres AI Data Center project in Nodaway County, Missouri, consist of local grassroots groups, student activists, and local government officials who successfully pushed for a regulatory halt on the project. [1, 2, 3, 4]
The primary opponents include:
- Nodaway Says No: A community-led coalition of local residents and farmers formed specifically to protest the development. They have organized demonstrations and distributed widespread yard signs reading “No data center” across the county. [1, 2]
- Carter Strauch: A local activist and Northwest Missouri State University student who launched a petition opposing the Scale Microgrids project, which quickly garnered over 7,000 signatures. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- Nodaway County Commissioners: The local governing body that responded to community backlash by voting to enact a six-month moratorium on the project, effectively putting a pause on construction to investigate infrastructure impacts. [1, 2]
- The Mayor of Maryville: The top municipal official for the nearby city of Maryville, who publicly announced opposition to the multi-billion-dollar project. [1]
Primary Concerns of Opponents
According to reports from local outlets like the Northwest Missourian and national tech publications like Tom’s Hardware, opponents are fighting the data center due to a variety of environmental and economic concerns: [1, 2]
- Grid and Power Demands: The massive 600-megawatt project requires an adjacent natural gas-fired power plant, raising local air pollution and climate concerns. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- Resource Drain: Fears that the facility will consume millions of gallons of water for cooling and deplete local water resources. [1, 2]
- Infrastructure Overhaul: Anxiety over noise pollution and how the massive development will fundamentally change the rural character of the community.
Scale Microgrids’ Strategy and Response
Scale Microgrids, which recently acquired data center developer Reload, has responded to the pushback by emphasizing self-sufficiency and substantial economic perks. To counter local infrastructure concerns, their strategy focuses on the following pillars: [1, 2, 3]
- Grid Independence: The company plans to deploy an on-site, 600-megawatt natural gas-powered microgrid. Scale Microgrids highlights that this islanded energy approach powers the massive AI workloads internally, preventing residential ratepayers from facing skyrocketing utility bills or cross-subsidizing the infrastructure. [1, 2, 3]
- Mitigated Resource Demands: Addressing water depletion concerns, the developer states that the facility will use a closed-loop system to drastically lower consumption, requiring roughly 200,000 gallons of water a day rather than multi-million gallon draws. They have collaborated with local water boards to publish transparent feasibility studies. [1, 2, 3]
- Economic Vindication: Scale Microgrids projects that the $6.3 billion White Cloud Acres development will inject over $200 million in direct local tax contributions over the facility’s lifespan. They note the majority of these tax windfalls would fund the South Nodaway R4 School District, alongside generating more than 200 construction jobs and 26 permanent positions. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Local Landowner Reaction: Blake Hurst’s Counter-Perspective
While grassroots opposition remains high, former Missouri Farm Bureau president and local Tarkio farmer Blake Hurst made national headlines by aggressively defending the development. In a widely discussed Wall Street Journal op-ed titled “If You’d Like to Build a Data Center, My Farm Is Available,” Hurst laid out a sharp counter-perspective to the community pushback: [1, 2, 3]
- Combating Rural Decay: Hurst argues that rural northwest Missouri’s economy is in “shambles” and faces critical population decline. He views blocking billions of dollars in tech investments as a self-defeating choice that actively starves local communities of desperately needed jobs and tax revenue. [1, 2, 3]
- Dismissing Resource Anxiets: From a farming perspective, Hurst dismissed regional resource panics. He noted that the region has abundant rainfall to handle water needs and pointed out the irony of technology-adopting modern farmers fiercely fighting data infrastructure. [1]
- An Open Invitation: Defying the regional backlash, Hurst publicly invited data center developers to bid on his own property just 40 miles away in Atchison County, stating that if a developer makes an offer, he would gladly take the cash, inject it into the regional economy, and simply rebuild his farming operations further down the road. [1, 2, 3]
Water Utility Feasibility Draft
A draft of the water feasibility study commissioned by the Public Water Supply District (PWSD) No. 1 of Nodaway County was compiled by Kansas City-based firm Lamp Rynearson and overseen by White Cloud Engineering and Construction. The report analyzes how the hyperscale data center will draw and dispose of water for cooling without threatening the local water table: [1, 2]
- Reclaimed Wastewater via Reverse Osmosis: The primary option being evaluated is utilizing recycled wastewater sourced from the City of Maryville. The data center would process this water through an on-site reverse osmosis treatment system. [1, 2]
- Closed-Loop Cooling Reserve: The facility would deploy a closed-loop system requiring an initial filling of 1.5 million gallons, but would then transition to a highly efficient recurring draw of roughly 100,000 to 200,000 gallons per day to sustain cooling operations. [1, 2]
- Rural Cost Insulation: Crucially, the PWSD No. 1 board clarified that concurrent 50% rural water rate hikes hitting Nodaway County residents in 2027 and 2028 are driven entirely by the City of Maryville’s new standalone water treatment plant costs—not the White Cloud Acres development or an adjacent Evergy plant. [1, 2, 3]
Nodaway County Health Center Analysis
The Nodaway County Health Center administrator, Tom Patterson, compiled a report for the Nodaway County Commission to assess the health ramifications of the co-located 600-megawatt White Cloud Generating natural gas power plant and data center. The analysis evaluates two primary points of friction: [1, 2]
- Air Pollution Financial Burden: The report estimates that the environmental and air health-related costs incurred by the surrounding area from the power plant would total hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first year alone. [1]
- Noise Impacts on Livestock: Because the facility will produce a constant, low-frequency hum (comparable to the continuous sound level of an industrial vacuum cleaner), the health center tracked how uninterrupted ambient noise affects local livestock. [1, 2]
- Public Reception: While the report formalizes the community’s pollution and public health anxieties, local officials noted that the technical data is dense and highly interpretable, meaning it has largely reinforced the preset stances of both developers and opponents rather than shifting public opinion. [1]
Tax Breakdowns: South Nodaway R4 School District
Because the massive $6.3 billion White Cloud Acres development is located within the rural bounds of Barnard, Missouri, the South Nodaway R4 School District stands as the primary fiscal beneficiary of the project. The projected lifecycle tax contributions include: [1, 2, 3]
- Aggregated Lifetime Liability: Scale Microgrids estimates that the project will generate a total of $1.1 billion in local tax liability over its projected 35-year useful life. [1]
- The School District’s Share: Out of that $1.1 billion, roughly $900 million is projected to be directed specifically to the South Nodaway R4 School District. This massive cash injection has driven a fierce debate over tax abatements; county commissioners note that offering structured tax incentives may be the only mechanism they have to legally enforce community guardrails and retain local control over the site. [1, 2]
The Missouri Data Center Sales Tax Exemption Program serves as the state’s most powerful tool for attracting multi-billion dollar tech projects like White Cloud Acres. Codified under Missouri Revised Statutes § 144.810, the program is managed by the Department of Economic Development (DED). [1, 2, 3]
Core Program Benefits
The program provides eligible facilities with a 100% exemption on all state and local sales and use taxes. This tax relief applies directly to: [1]
- Construction Infrastructure: All raw building materials, personal property, and construction supplies used to build or rehabilitate the physical facility. [1, 2]
- High-Cost Technology Hardware: High-performance computers, storage arrays, servers, routers, and telecommunication infrastructure. Because data centers routinely refresh their processing hardware every 3 to 5 years, this recurring exemption saves companies hundreds of millions of dollars over the building’s lifecycle. [1, 2]
- Utility Operations: All recurring electricity and utility costs needed to power and cool the facility’s immense computational workloads. [1]
Threshold Requirements
To qualify for these exemptions, developers must satisfy strict economic criteria within a specific timeframe:
| Requirement Category | New Facilities | Expanding Existing Facilities |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum Capital Investment | $25 Million (within 36 months) | $5 Million (within 12 months) |
| Minimum Job Creation | 10 New Full-Time Jobs | 5 New Full-Time Jobs |
| Mandatory Wage Floor | 150% of the county average wage | 150% of the county average wage |
| Maximum Incentive Term | Up to 15 Years | Up to 10 Years |
The Policy Debate
The program has become a lightning rod for political friction in rural counties: [1]
- Proponents’ Angle: State economic leaders point out that massive server networks rarely consume traditional local public resources (like public schools or emergency response infrastructure), meaning they can provide huge net financial returns to local economies via real property taxes without overwhelming the community. [1]
- Opponents’ Angle: Activist groups point out that while technology firms make massive profits, the permanent employee footprint required to run an automated data center is incredibly small. Critics argue that the local community absorbs the environmental impact, water usage, and high grid strain, while the state program completely legally blocks them from collecting vital sales tax revenue on billions of dollars in hardware purchases. [1, 2]
The intersection of state incentives, county responses, and local property tax abatements showcases a highly complex economic landscape across Missouri.
Local Property Tax Abatements (Chapter 353 & Chapter 100)
While the state-level Data Center Sales Tax Exemption Program shields tech firms from paying taxes on equipment and utilities, local property tax abatements dictate how much these companies pay for the land and buildings they occupy. Because data centers yield low permanent employment relative to their massive real estate footprint, local county commissioners utilize a few distinct tax tools to structure deals: [1, 2]
- Chapter 353 Abatements: Legally designed to spur the redevelopment of “blighted areas”, a Chapter 353 incentive allows local governments to provide a real property tax abatement for up to 25 years. It freezes or heavily discounts the property tax on the physical buildings and structures. In data center negotiations, developers often leverage this by promising to fund public infrastructure upgrades in exchange for the “blighted” designation on rural land. [1]
- Chapter 100 Personal Property Abatements: The largest data center savings happen at the county level via Chapter 100 bonds. Under this mechanism, the county technically takes ownership of the data center’s multi-million dollar server hardware and leases it back to the company, making the equipment immune to standard local personal property taxes.
- PILOT Agreements (Payments in Lieu of Taxes): To prevent local public schools and emergency services from being completely defunded by these abatements, counties negotiate PILOT programs. Instead of paying standard fluctuating property taxes, tech companies pay a negotiated flat annual fee directly to the county. [1]
How Other Missouri Counties Are Handling Data Center Applications
Missouri has rapidly become a major battleground for hyperscale data centers, with different rural and suburban counties taking drastically contrasting approaches to applications: [1]
| Missouri County | Active Projects | Local Governance & Tax Strategy | Community Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Montgomery County | Google (Project Spade) & Amazon Web Services (Project Green) | Courting massive 1,900-acre sites. Commissioners approved a 70% personal property tax abatement on servers. In exchange, Google will pay a flat $10 million annually for 20 years to be split among local school districts and towns. | High friction. A grassroots group called Preserve Montgomery County filed a lawsuit against the county over alleged Sunshine Law violations and unstudied resource drains. |
| Clay County | Google (Project Mica) & Metrobloks | Embracing rapid industrial expansion. To win the ~700 MW Google campus, local leaders secured an agreement requiring Google to provide $1.75 million in upfront workforce funding, including $1.5 million explicitly for the Smithville School District. | Generally cooperative due to direct, upfront municipal financial infusions and structured public utility agreements. |
| Jackson County (Independence) | Nebius Campus Expansion & Cielo KC | The Independence City Council aggressively approved massive tax incentive packages, negotiating deals where data centers received up to a 90% discount on their local property tax bills. | Sparked significant public outcry. Local activist networks are actively petitioning regional representatives, arguing that extreme 90% subsidies leave local residents bearing the long-term tax burden for infrastructure maintenance. |
| Jasper County | Geronimo Jasper County Powered Data Park | Cooperating with developers to build a 450-megawatt park. To ease local friction, county coordinators required the developer to establish a dedicated charitable fund to support neighboring civic initiatives alongside standard construction job metrics. | Mixed. Residents remain cautious regarding grid strain, but the inclusion of direct community-managed funds has softened local political resistance compared to other rural zones. |