'Absolutely out of line': Boulder City erupts after surprise data center approval

LAS VEGAS — A small rally in Southern Nevada’s quaintest city had a big message.

Data centers aren’t welcome in the city that built Hoover Dam. But they may be coming anyway despite fierce resident protest — a fact that Boulder City restaurateur and longtime resident Grant Turner said he has come to terms with.

Many Boulder City residents found themselves blindsided after they learned last week that a data center some were fighting, originally proposed under a city lease, received a green light from the Trump administration to build on public land instead.

“This was never a good-faith negotiation,” Turner told councilmembers. “They had a gun to our head at all times.”

Bureau of Land Management officials collected no public comment nor did they fully consult the city — something that caught the attention of Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., who demanded answers in a letter to agency leaders a day after news broke of its approval.

The federal government’s move means that Boulder City will lose out on $2.3 million in annual revenue, according to officials, while residents still must deal with whatever frontline impacts a data center may bring.

On Tuesday, the Boulder City Council voted unanimously to do something about it and write an appeal letter.

“This is a departure from previous precedent and procedure, as the BLM, essentially, sweepingly approved a new land use without following processes in federal law,” Boulder City Attorney Brittany Walker said.

During hours of public comment at the meeting, dozens of residents called the Bureau of Land Management’s approval “a surprise attack” and “an injustice.” Councilmembers expressed similar feelings.

Data centers are effectively warehouses that house computer servers and power functions like cloud storage and artificial intelligence.

Though data center impacts remain understudied, they demand massive amounts of power; the state’s utility has said it may miss its legally mandated clean energy goals for 2030 as it attempts to fill in gaps in the grid with natural gas plants.

The Southern Nevada Water Authority’s ban on evaporative cooling means that new data centers cannot use water-intensive methods to cool their servers. That usually increases facility power demand.

Other concerns include air pollution from backup generators, the emission of heat, noise pollution and more. Some remarked during public comment that they are concerned about the equity of their homes.

While residents found themselves protesting the data center through Boulder City’s lengthy land management process, developers were exploring their options. A previously approved right-of-way application allowed Skylar Capital Management to build a solar farm — and a quick amendment to that permit switched the land use to a data center.

BLM officials determined the solar farm’s environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act was sufficient and could be applied to the data center, as well. Councilmember Steve Walton took issue with that assumption on Tuesday.

“I don’t know in any world how they could have made the statement that that project is in any way similar to the original solar energy production and battery energy storage application,” Walton said. “Absolutely out of line. Just ridiculous.”

Resident opposition was cited as a major reason the Boulder City Planning Commission recommended the City Council reject Skylar Capital’s data center in a 6-1 vote in May.

The data center’s Houston-based developer, Townsite Solar 2, is a subsidiary of the hedge fund Skylar Capital Management. In a statement on Wednesday, the developer said it will “explore avenues to work with Boulder City in positive and constructive ways, regardless of whether we pursue opportunities on city-owned or federally-owned land.”

The Las Vegas Review-Journal’s multiple requests for comment to the BLM have gone unanswered.

Walker, the city attorney, told councilmembers that the BLM, in her view, did not effectively answer the city’s questions or fulfill their duty of interagency collaboration.

“We were not involved in a collaborative way in the process of looking at the application at all,” Walker said.

The data center conversation is likely to hit Carson City in a big way in 2027, if local government action is any indication.

A few residents spoke of their desire to see Boulder City implement a moratorium on data center approvals and development while the city and state can decide how to regulate them more effectively. That’s a move that the city of Reno took in May, and one that both the Nye County Commission and Henderson City Council are considering.

One resident read a letter aloud written by former Councilmember Judith Hoskins, who urged the city to adopt a moratorium and consider more comprehensive regulation.

“Once a facility of this scale is constructed and municipal infrastructure is committed, there’s no practical way to reverse those decisions,” reads Hoskins’ letter. “Boulder City has long been recognized for thoughtful planning, responsible growth and environmental stewardship. Those values should continue to guide us today.”

Boulder City Mayor Joe Hardy briefly mentioned that he had reviewed a set of policy recommendations from the Sierra Club’s Toiyabe Chapter, which deal with issues such as air pollution from backup diesel generators and water use.

The city’s voters will weigh in on data centers on their November ballots, deciding if that will become an accepted use of city-owned land in the Eldorado Valley. Hardy pointed to that vote as another test of resident sentiment.

Celeste Interrante, who moved to Boulder City about a year ago and runs a cleaning business, said she felt it was a missed opportunity as the Trump administration shut out public engagement. However, Interrante said it’s high time for councilmembers to have a discussion about what to do when other proposals come forward.

“My ask tonight is, let’s stop re-litigating a decision already made for us and instead decide deliberately what Boulder City’s position is before the next proposal lands on our doorstep, because there will be a next one,” Interrante said. “I don’t believe ‘no data centers ever’ serves the city, but ‘yes to anything’ doesn’t, either.”

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