PETITION TO PROTECT NICHOLASVILLE, WILMORE, AND JESSAMINE COUNTY, KENTUCKY
NO DATA CENTERS — PROTECT OUR LAND, WATER, HOMES, AND WAY OF LIFE
To: The Nicholasville City Commission, Wilmore City Council, Jessamine County Fiscal Court, the Jessamine County Planning Commission, and all elected officials representing our communities.

Our request: Adopt strong local protections to prohibit data center (hyperscale) development in Nicholasville, Wilmore, and Jessamine County, Kentucky.

Our land is more than a business opportunity. It is our home.
We, the undersigned residents, families, farmers, homeowners, and concerned citizens of Nicholasville, Wilmore, and Jessamine County, respectfully call upon our local leaders to protect the place we call home by taking decisive action against data center development.

We are blessed to live in a community with beautiful farmland, magnificent thoroughbred horses, rolling green hills, open skies, historic places, quiet neighborhoods, clean water, and the simple pleasures of small-town Kentucky life. These are not just scenic views. They are part of our heritage, our identity, our livelihoods, and the legacy we hope to leave our children and grandchildren.

We value our family farms, our horse farms, our creeks and streams, our wildlife, our peaceful evenings, our neighbors, and the freedom to enjoy our own property without the constant hum of industrial machinery. We treasure the character of Wilmore, the growth and history of Nicholasville, and the rural beauty that makes Jessamine County special.

We cannot put a price tag on the peace of our homes, the health of our families, or the land that sustains us.

A promise of millions in investment or additional tax revenue may sound attractive today. But what happens tomorrow, when open fields are replaced by enormous industrial buildings, when electricity infrastructure cuts across our countryside, when cooling systems hum day and night, and when our water and power resources must serve facilities built for corporations rather than the people who live here?

Financial gain is not worth losing who we are.

We do not oppose progress. We oppose a kind of development that asks our community to surrender its land, resources, peace, and character for an industry whose benefits may not outweigh the permanent costs.

1. Virginia is a warning we should take seriously.
We do not have to imagine what can happen when data centers expand rapidly into communities. We can learn from the experiences of residents in Virginia, where data center development has transformed neighborhoods and raised serious concerns about noise, pollution, water, electricity, and land use.

In July 2025, NPR reporting published by Oregon Public Broadcasting documented growing opposition to data centers in Virginia. Residents described fears about constant cooling-system noise, water use, pollution, and massive industrial buildings near their homes. In Chesapeake, residents organized and successfully persuaded their City Council to reject a proposed project.

Read the article: https://www.opb.org/article/2025/07/17/virginia-is-for-data-centers-residents-are-increasingly-saying-no/ 

The lesson is clear: communities can protect themselves, but residents must speak up before a project becomes a permanent fixture in their neighborhood.

A May 2026 Washington Post investigation examined diesel backup generators at Virginia data centers. Its analysis of emissions permits for 132 Northern Virginia data centers estimated that their approximately 10,500 generators could contribute to harmful respiratory and cardiovascular effects, even with limited operation. The reporting included residents who described black smoke, soot, and irritation when generators ran. State officials and industry representatives disputed aspects of the assessment and pointed to other air-quality analyses, but the findings underscore why cumulative pollution must be taken seriously.

Read the investigation: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2026/05/28/data-centers-boom-virginians-breathe-exhaust-10000-diesel-generators/

Virginia's experience demonstrates that the consequences of data center development can reach far beyond the walls of a single building. The supporting infrastructure, backup power, noise, and demand for electricity can affect the surrounding community.

We should not wait for Jessamine County residents to experience these problems firsthand before deciding to protect ourselves.

2. Protect our water, farmland, horse farms, and natural beauty.
Our land is a living inheritance. It grows our food, supports our farmers, provides habitat for wildlife, and gives our families room to breathe.

Large data centers can require substantial water for cooling, depending on their design and technology. Their electricity needs can also place additional demands on the regional power grid. The scale of these demands varies by facility, which is precisely why communities must not accept vague assurances in place of enforceable protections.

We ask our leaders to consider what is at stake:

Our water: Protect drinking water supplies, groundwater, streams, and the long-term reliability of local water resources.
Our farmland: Preserve productive agricultural land and our horse farms rather than allowing permanent industrial conversion. 
Our countryside: Prevent enormous, windowless buildings, security fencing, cooling equipment, and associated industrial infrastructure from overwhelming our rural landscapes.
Our homes: Protect residents from intrusive noise, light pollution, industrial traffic, and incompatible development.
Our future: Ensure that our children inherit a community that remains livable, beautiful, and economically diverse.

Once farmland is paved over and industrial development is established, restoring the land to its former condition may be difficult, expensive, or impossible.

We cannot drink tax revenue. We cannot grow crops in a parking lot. And we cannot buy back the quiet, rural character of a community after it has been permanently changed.

3. Diesel generators and air pollution are not somebody else's problem.
Data centers require reliable electricity around the clock. Many use diesel backup generators to keep their computer systems operating during outages or other disruptions. Some facilities also pursue additional on-site power generation when grid connections cannot meet their needs.

These systems raise legitimate questions about exhaust, fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, noise, fuel storage, and the cumulative effects of repeated generator operation.

The Washington Post investigation in Virginia described residents who reported seeing soot and smelling or experiencing the effects of generator exhaust near their homes. Researchers cited in the report estimated potential health impacts from emissions across the region.

We do not want our neighbors placed in a position where they must wonder what is in the air their children or farm animals breathe, whether the noise outside their windows will ever stop, or whether their homes will remain comfortable places to live.

We should not have to wait until pollution complaints arise, or until residents demand additional monitoring, to ask whether such a facility belongs near our homes in the first place.

Our position is simple: Jessamine County should not accept data center development that risks the health, peace, and environmental quality of our community in exchange for uncertain economic benefits. We call for prohibition, not merely promises to mitigate harm after construction.

4. Protect private property and guard against the expansion of power infrastructure.
A data center is not just a building. Its electricity demand can require new substations, transmission lines, utility corridors, and other supporting infrastructure.

These projects can create conflicts over land use and private property rights. When new transmission infrastructure is proposed, landowners may face pressure to sell property or grant easements. In some circumstances, legally authorized utilities or public entities may seek to acquire rights of way through eminent domain.

Our farmers and property owners should not have to fear that an industrial project will bring new power corridors through their land, divide farms, disturb established homes, or place pressure on families to surrender property they have worked for generations to preserve.

We call upon our local leaders to protect property rights, scrutinize every proposed utility expansion associated with data center development, and oppose any unnecessary taking of private property for infrastructure serving these projects.

Our land should not become a sacrifice zone for an industry whose electricity needs may be far beyond what our community was designed to support.

5. Doing nothing is a decision, too.
We must not assume that data centers cannot come here simply because we have not yet approved one.

The Kentucky Resources Council has warned that Kentucky communities face challenges because existing planning and zoning rules may not specifically address data centers. Its published toolkit explains that local regulatory authority differs depending on whether a community has adopted land-use planning and zoning.

Read the Kentucky Resources Council's data center resources: https://kyrc.org/datacenters/

Read its local-government toolkit: https://kyrc.org/datacenters-toolkit/

These resources include model ordinances designed to help Kentucky communities address data center development.

This is why we must act before a proposal arrives at our doorstep. Waiting until a developer has purchased land, negotiated utility arrangements, secured permits, or invested heavily in a project can make opposition more difficult and costly.

Virginia's experience shows how difficult it can be for residents to reverse decisions after industrial facilities have been built. The time to protect our community is before irreversible commitments are made.

We ask our elected officials to review our existing laws, identify gaps in local authority, coordinate with state agencies and legal counsel, and adopt the strongest lawful protections available.

Silence is not protection. Inaction is not a plan. And waiting until the bulldozers arrive is too late.

6. The promises of money and jobs must not outweigh our quality of life.
We understand that local governments need revenue, that infrastructure costs money, and that officials must consider economic development. We are overwhelmed with construction up and down 27! Overwhelmed. We need a pause. 

But economic development should serve the community, not force the community to serve an industry.

Before accepting any proposal, residents deserve transparent answers about permanent local employment, water demand, electricity consumption, potential effects on utility bills, tax incentives, public infrastructure costs, noise, air quality, emergency planning, and long-term environmental obligations.

Large capital investment does not automatically mean a proportionate number of permanent local jobs or a net financial benefit for residents. Those outcomes depend on the details of each project, including incentives, infrastructure costs, tax arrangements, and the demands placed on public services.

We should not risk our land and resources on promises that have not been independently examined.

Nicholasville, Wilmore, and Jessamine County can pursue responsible economic growth while protecting the assets that make our communities worth living in. We can support local businesses, preserve agriculture, welcome compatible industries, and invest in our existing neighborhoods without committing our future to massive data center development.

Our community's value cannot be measured by how much industrial construction we can attract.

7. Our formal demands to local leaders
We respectfully request that the Nicholasville City Commission, Wilmore City Council, Jessamine County Fiscal Court, and the appropriate planning authorities take the following actions:

Adopt a prohibition on data center development. Enact the strongest legally defensible ordinances and land-use restrictions available to prevent data centers and associated facilities from being established within the respective jurisdictions.
Coordinate protections across our communities. Work together to prevent inconsistent rules or gaps in protection from leaving neighboring areas vulnerable to incompatible industrial development.
Review and strengthen existing ordinances immediately. Consult Kentucky Resources Council model ordinances and qualified legal counsel to identify the most effective lawful approach for each jurisdiction, including areas without conventional zoning authority.
Protect water and electricity resources. Require full disclosure and independent assessment of proposed water use, power demand, utility infrastructure, and potential impacts on existing customers before considering any related development or infrastructure proposal.
Protect air quality and public health. Address diesel backup generators, on-site power generation, emissions, noise, lighting, and cumulative impacts in any applicable regulations, permits, and reviews.
Protect private property rights. Closely scrutinize proposed transmission lines, substations, utility corridors, and easements associated with data center development. Oppose unlawful or unnecessary takings and protect landowners to the fullest extent permitted by law.
Reject public subsidies that place residents at risk. Do not commit public funds, tax incentives, or public infrastructure investments to data center projects without transparent public review and a demonstrated net public benefit.
Hold public hearings and listen to residents. Provide timely notice, accessible information, and meaningful opportunities for citizens to speak before decisions are made that could permanently alter our community.
Maintain transparency and accountability. Publish relevant applications, studies, proposed agreements, and infrastructure plans, subject to applicable disclosure laws, so residents can understand the consequences of proposed development.
Make protecting our way of life a priority. Recognize the long-term value of our farmland, clean water, peaceful neighborhoods, historic character, and rural beauty in every land-use and economic-development decision.
Our promise to future generations
Imagine our children and grandchildren growing up here, watching the seasons change over our fields, admiring a rolling hill of thoroughbred horses,  playing outside in the fresh air, drinking clean water, learning the value of hard work, and building their own families in a community that still feels like home.

Imagine our farmers continuing to work the land, our equine industry continuing to flourish, our neighborhoods remaining peaceful, and our towns retaining the character that generations before us worked so hard to preserve.

That future is worth defending.

We cannot predict every challenge the future will bring. But we can make deliberate choices today about the kind of community we want to leave behind.

We do not want to look back years from now and wonder why we failed to act when we had the opportunity. We do not want to explain to our children that we traded irreplaceable land and community character for promises of revenue that could never restore what was lost.

We ask our elected officials to listen to the people who live here, work here, raise their families here, and care deeply about what happens here.

Let us be known as a community that valued its people over corporate pressure, its natural resources over short-term financial incentives, and its heritage over industrial expansion.

Let us show that progress does not have to mean sacrificing the very things that make a place worth calling home.

We stand together for clean water. We stand together for healthy air. We stand together for our farms, our homes, our property rights, and our peaceful way of life.

NO DATA CENTERS IN NICHOLASVILLE, WILMORE, OR JESSAMINE COUNTY, KENTUCKY.

We respectfully call on our local leaders to act now, protect our community, and preserve our land and way of life for generations to come.