A 12,000-square-foot data center is under construction in North Richland Hills, Texas at 6401 Wuliger Way, at the edge of the Iron Horse neighborhood, apartment communities (Oxford, The Bluffs, Cavalli) and the Northern Dancer Drive townhomes, with a planned opening around the end of July. A second, 330,000-square-foot data center is also being considered for the former Santander Bank site at 5201 Rufe Snow Drive.

The Wuliger Way project was approved automatically, with no public hearing, because the land was zoned as Medium Industrial (I-2) in 1985. That zoning predates the neighborhood and residential communities: the surrounding industrial park has operated since the 1980s, and the residential subdivisions were built later, after a 2002 rezoning. The zoning also predates modern data centers, failing to address any of their health concerns, noise & resource demands, or needs.

That's the real problem: no resident had a say before this was approved, and we don’t know what's coming next. The proposed Rufe Snow project is much larger, and it deserves real public scrutiny before a shovel goes in the ground.

We, the residents of North Richland Hills, refuse to accept that these decisions are out of our hands. We want a real voice before data centers are approved next to our homes, not after.

Our Demands

A pause on approving any new or expanded data center until the city commits to the process below.
A minimum enforced buffer of at least 3 miles between any data center and residential zone in NRH.
Independent, published environmental review before approval — covering expected water use, energy draw,grid impact, and environmental impacts (EMF, infrasound, vibration, and sound levels, along with generated pollution) — for any data center site near a residential area, including compounded effects where multiple sites are close together.
Every data center must be approved for a Special Use Permit. No more "by right" builds that bypass public notice for data center projects specifically. Residents should be notified and given a hearing before a permit is issued, regardless of the underlying zoning.
Full transparency, ongoing: Pre-approval promises aren’t enough. Public, plain-language, ongoing reporting of each facility's actual water and energy usage, and environmental impacts (EMF, infrasound, vibration, and sound levels, along with generated pollution).
Community benefits tied to actual impact: if a project moves forward, binding commitments on infrastructure costs and compensation for any documented negative effects without shifting costs to residents' utility bills.

Why This Matters Beyond NRH

Data centers are expanding fast nationwide, driven largely by AI. Some context, drawn from independent research (International Energy Agency, U.S. Department of Energy/Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, and a peer-reviewed Caltech/UC Riverside study):

Energy: A typical large AI-focused data center uses as much electricity as 100,000 households; the newest, largest ones under construction can use up to 20 times that. U.S. data centers already account for roughly 4.4% of national electricity use, projected to reach 6.7–12% by 2028. This is a real driver of rising electricity rates in areas with heavy data center buildout.
Water: Large data centers using evaporative cooling can consume up to 5 million gallons of water a day, comparable to a town of 10,000–50,000 people, though newer cooling methods (like the one proposed for Wuliger Way) claim to use far less.
Noise & Infra-Sonic sound: The effects of constant, unending sound (even at code levels) can become very taxing on the human body. Infra-sonic sound, even more so. Nausea, vomiting, dizziness, anxiety, panic attacks, animal behavior changes, sudden death to foul, and more have been linked to this. It is still a new phenomena and much more study needs to be done. However, those studies should be done in labs and safe zones - not on humans in real-time daily life.
Air quality: Where diesel backup generators are used, they can emit 200–600 times more nitrogen oxides than natural gas plants. One 2025 modeling study (Caltech/UC Riverside, using EPA methodology) estimated that nationwide data center air pollution could contribute to as many as 600,000 additional asthma symptom cases and up to roughly 1,300 premature deaths annually by 2030, with total public health costs approaching $20 billion — a range, not a certainty, but a serious enough estimate to take seriously.
Limited local benefit: These facilities typically create far fewer permanent jobs than their footprint suggests — anywhere from ten to a couple hundred, mostly maintenance and security — while receiving substantial tax incentives.

We should not assume that data centers are harmless until the data proves that. The real-life issues being reported by people almost daily are concerning enough to warrant a slow-down on additional builds – especially near residents. Residents deserve real information and a real say before one is built next to their homes, not after.

Sign this petition. Tell North Richland Hills: Do not build data centers near residents.

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Fund us forward- this is an expensive fight!

https://www.givesendgo.com/help-us-stop-the-data-center

http://elciproductions.com/OverYou/

Russell Mitchell

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