By: Keith Kappes
Columnist
Carter County Times
Yes, from the creation of EastPark Industrial Park in 1988 to the expected partial completion of the Muskie Data Campus in the second half of 2028, it will end 40 years of waiting. Disappointments and frustration were all wiped away last week with a grand slam home run for Carter and other FIVCO counties.
And it will be accomplished without confiscating anyone’s family farm or building a monstrous industrial plant next door to your neighborhood or, hopefully, not adding to the region’s already high residential and business electric bills.
Granted, there might have been more transparency in the behind-the-scenes negotiations involving five county judges-executive and state government and TeraWulf Inc., but absolute secrecy seems to be the only way to find new employers in today’s business world.
Ironically, TeraWulf, Inc. will be building its second data center on a Kentucky site linked publicly to aluminum. However, their first one actually had an active smelter in Hancock County, unlike the long-promised and never realized aluminum mill by Braidy Industries in EastPark.
With the help of AI, I identified four major concerns that arise in the U.S. when a new giant data center is announced to the public. To be fair, I’ve also included the standard responses to such questions and please note that none are necessarily specific to EastPark.
In terms of public finance, local governments and school districts benefit mightily when the local tax base increases by many millions of dollars. But overly generous tax incentives can reduce that windfall.
The impact on local employment will be huge in the construction phase but permanent jobs will not be proportionate to the physical size of the facility.
Investment by private technology will improve fiber and electrical substations but water supplies can be affected if state-of-the-art cooling systems are not used to recycle water.
Environmentalists advocate for clean, low traffic corporate neighbors, but industrial fan noise and emissions from diesel generators can be mitigated more easily because of the location of the complex in a 1,000-acre industrial park.
Considering the loss of substantial employers in recent years and today’s uncertain economy, I sincerely believe the Muskie Data Center is happening at the right time and at the right place.
Kudos to everyone involved!
Contact Keith at keithkappes@gmail.com.
(Editor’s note: While we agree with some of the author’s assertions here, particularly about the appropriateness of the industrial park as a location instead of productive farmland, we remain ambivalent on the TeraWulf project as a whole and still have several questions about energy and water usage, as well as the overall lack of transparency in negotiating the location of this site. We also have concerns about the use of A.I. in the production of this column but appreciate the author’s transparency in noting his use of A.I. for research.)
