A Data Center Town Hall in Boyd County Raised Questions Kentucky Has Not Answered Yet
A proposed TeraWulf data center in northeastern Kentucky is now a local test of utility costs, tax incentives, public records, and who gets answers before a major project is already underway.
At a town hall in Catlettsburg, Boyd and Greenup County residents asked the questions that often come after a major economic development announcement: Who knew what, when did they know it, what was signed, and who will pay if the project strains local infrastructure?
The project is TeraWulf’s proposed Muskie Data Campus, a large high-performance computing and AI data center planned for EastPark Industrial Park in northeastern Kentucky. TeraWulf announced on May 26 that it had acquired about 285 acres inside EastPark and expects the site could eventually support more than 1 gigawatt of data center capacity. The company says an initial 500 megawatts could begin ramping up in the second half of 2028, with another 500 megawatts targeted for 2030.
That is the company’s plan. The public question now belongs to Boyd County, Greenup County, Kentucky Power, state economic development officials, local residents, and any agency that may be asked to approve permits, utility arrangements, or incentives.
The questions came before the answers
The June 1 town hall was not a routine ribbon-cutting. Residents asked about water use, cooling, jobs, electric costs, health concerns, land, and nondisclosure agreements. WEKU reported that 51 people signed up to speak, but the meeting stopped at the 27th name. Some questions were deferred to a future meeting with TeraWulf representatives.
WSAZ reported that Boyd County Judge-Executive Eric Chaney said the first phase is expected to be complete in 2028, with full power expected by 2030. County leaders also said TeraWulf is expected to hold its own town hall on June 17, although the time and location had not yet been announced in that report.
Residents are not only asking whether they support a data center. They are asking whether the public will see the documents before the major decisions are too far along to change.
EastPark is not just private land
EastPark Industrial Park is a regional economic development site, not simply a private parcel. The official EastPark description identifies it as a 1,000-acre multi-use business park created by Boyd, Carter, Elliott, Greenup, and Lawrence County governments and the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
That public history changes the civic question. A private company may own or control the project site, but the location exists because local governments and the Kentucky state government built an economic development platform. Residents have a legitimate interest in the agreements, public commitments, utility plans, and local costs attached to that platform.
The utility piece is especially important. TeraWulf says Kentucky Power, an AEP company, is constructing a 345 kV substation connected to the existing 765 kV transmission network. TeraWulf also says energy service agreements were executed with Kentucky Power under an industrial tariff structure.
Those details are not small. They point directly to the next layer of public accountability: the contracts, tariffs, infrastructure costs, and any filings with the Kentucky Public Service Commission.
The Kentucky policy backdrop
Kentucky has already made itself more attractive to data centers. In 2025, House Bill 775 expanded the sales and use tax exemption for qualified data center projects. Kentucky Department of Revenue guidance states that the exemption covers data center equipment, including servers, routers, fiber-optic cabling, network equipment, software, monitoring systems, and security systems.
A separate 2026 bill, House Bill 593, would have created more direct guardrails around utility costs and data center electric service. The bill focused on Public Service Commission-regulated utilities, municipal utilities, contracts, tariffs, and cost allocation. It did not become law.
That leaves a gap residents are now naming in real time.
Kentucky has opened the door to data center recruitment, but the public still needs clear answers on who pays for infrastructure, how ratepayers are protected, how water needs are measured, and which local officials signed what.
Reader actions
Ask local fiscal court members for any public records tied to TeraWulf, EastPark, Kentucky Power, Industrial Equity Partners, and the Muskie Data Campus.
Ask whether existing ratepayers will be insulated from project-specific infrastructure costs and whether any Public Service Commission filing exists.
Plan to attend the June 17 town hall and bring document-based questions rather than general objections. Ask for the water-use estimate, the tariff, the infrastructure-cost allocation, the job commitment, the tax incentive status, and any nondisclosure agreements signed by public officials or public authorities.
This story is still developing. The public record should develop with it.
Sources
TeraWulf, “TeraWulf Expands Infrastructure Platform with Acquisition of 1+ GW Eastern Kentucky HPC Campus”
https://investors.terawulf.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/141/terawulf-expands-infrastructure-platform-with-acquisition-of-1-gw-eastern-kentucky-hpc-campus
WEKU, “Northeast Kentucky data center draws resident questions on transparency, jobs”
https://www.weku.org/the-commonwealth/2026-06-02/northeast-kentucky-data-center-draws-resident-questions-on-transparency-jobs
WSAZ, “Neighbors ask questions and address concerns in data center town hall”
https://www.wsaz.com/2026/06/02/neighbors-ask-questions-address-concerns-data-center-town-hall/
Kentucky Department of Revenue, “Sales Tax Facts, June 2025”
https://revenue.ky.gov/News/Publications/Sales%20Tax%20Newsletters/Sales%20Tax%20Facts%202025%20-%20Jun.pdf
Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, HB 593
https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/26rs/hb593.html
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, “Questions Grow About Who Will Pay the Cost for Big Data Centers”
https://kypolicy.org/who-will-pay-for-kentucky-data-centers/