Keep Tyler Green

🐾 Well, I’d call our very first Keep Tyler Green Adopt & Shop Market a success! ❤️

Jackson, one of the adoptable dogs from APET SPCA, found his forever home today, and that alone made all the hard work worth it.

A huge thank you to this wonderful family for choosing adoption, to APET SPCA for everything they do for animals in our community, and to PetSense Lindale for partnering with us and hosting the event.

I’m so grateful to everyone who came out, supported our vendors, shared the event, and helped make our first Adopt & Shop Market such a special day.

Congratulations, Jackson! We hope your new life is filled with love, treats, belly rubs, and lots of adventures. 🐶❤️

This is exactly the kind of community impact Keep Tyler Green hopes to create.

🐾💚 Lauren Snyder

We are thrilled to announce that Jackson from APET SPCA has found his forever home at today's Adopt & Shop Market! It's heartwarming to see him start this new chapter with a loving family. A huge thank you to Keep Tyler Green for organizing this wonderful event and to APET for their unwavering commitment to helping animals in need.

“Water is life. Without it, we will not survive, and if you agree to this, then you are participating with them, literally sucking the life out of us,” she told commissioners.

Angelina County residents speak out against proposed AI data center ⬇️

This is the most insane real estate story in American history.

And it is happening right now. In one of the poorest counties in one of the poorest states in America. To people who had absolutely no idea it was coming. Who found out only after the deal was already done.

The name of this project is Hyperion. And when you understand its true scale — you will never think about Facebook, Instagram, or WhatsApp the same way again.

🗺️ THE SIZE OF THIS THING WILL BREAK YOUR BRAIN

Meta’s Hyperion data center campus now spans 2,250 acres — a site so large that Mark Zuckerberg noted it could cover a significant portion of Manhattan. The total investment, when including the associated private energy generation, is now estimated at $27 BILLION. It is designed to deliver 2 to 5 gigawatts of dedicated compute power at full build-out. To put that in perspective — 5 GW is enough electricity to power roughly 3.7 million homes. 

Meta has since bought about 1,400 MORE acres — an area almost twice the size of Central Park — next to its already massive 2,250-acre site. The total site is now more than TWICE the size of the nearest international airport in New Orleans. 

Twice the size of New Orleans’ international airport. On a site that is growing every single week.

And it is located in Richland Parish — one of the poorest rural counties in the entire United States of America.

🤫 AND THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE FOUND OUT ABOUT IT AFTER IT WAS ALREADY DONE

So secretive was this project that the details were hashed out in an unusually sprawling set of private deals — leaving nearby residents to learn about it only after it was a fait accompli. Signs across the parish now advertise thousands of acres for sale. Morris, a corn and soybean farmer, is weighing whether to sell land his family has held for generations. Here, in one of the poorest corners of America, Meta Platforms Inc. is building one of the world’s largest data centers — a project so expensive it is being financed by one of the biggest private capital deals ever assembled. So power-hungry that 10 new gas-fired turbines have been planned to keep it running. 

A corn and soybean farmer. Weighing whether to sell the land his family has held for generations. Because Mark Zuckerberg decided his county was the right place to build a $27 billion AI empire.

And he found out about it after the deal was already signed.

⚡ 10 NEW GAS-FIRED TURBINES — IN A POOR RURAL COMMUNITY — TO POWER FACEBOOK’S AI

Meta has announced that the Hyperion facility has the potential to scale up to 5 GW of power capacity — disclosed in March 2026 as part of a new energy agreement with Entergy Louisiana. Entergy Louisiana is building new gas-fired generation, transmission, and renewable capacity to serve the facility — with total energy infrastructure costs exceeding $5 to $6 BILLION. 

$5 to $6 billion. Just for the power. Just for the electricity infrastructure to keep one company’s AI running.

And all of it — the gas turbines, the transmission lines, the infrastructure costs — will be paid for by Louisiana ratepayers. By the families of Richland Parish. By the people in one of the poorest communities in America — who will see their electric bills climb to power the machine that runs Instagram.

🌮 THE TACO STORY THAT WENT VIRAL — AND WHAT IT REALLY MEANS

When Bloomberg published its bombshell investigation of Hyperion three weeks ago — one detail captured the imagination of everyone who read it.

Tim and Lindsey Allen were preparing over 1,600 tacos — with names like “Divine Swine” (smoked pork), “Righteous Rooster” (braised chicken), and “Golden Calf” (brisket) — for construction workers building Meta’s massive data center. It’s a catering order that would have been unthinkable here just a year ago. The Allens, parents of five, had long joked about starting a taco joint called Holy Tacos. Tim is a church administrator and children’s pastor at the First Baptist Church. 

1,600 tacos. From a church administrator who became a caterer. Because 10,000 construction workers suddenly arrived in a county that had never seen anything like it.

It is a beautiful story. And it is a real story. And it represents everything that is simultaneously wonderful and terrifying about what is happening in Richland Parish.

Because here is the part that comes after the taco order:

Monroe Mayor Friday Ellis — who was raised in Richland Parish and whose father and grandfather were sharecroppers for the Franklins — says Hyperion is precisely “the thing we’ve been asking for.” But when talking to locals, he acknowledges “it may just not look like what you wanted it to look like.” He empathizes with complaints about housing costs, windshields cracked by construction debris, and a surge in accidents — several of which have been fatal. “Their concerns are real, and they’re personal,” Ellis says. “And I can’t say they’re wrong for having those feelings.” 

Fatal accidents. Housing costs exploding. Windshields cracked by construction debris on roads that were never built for this kind of traffic.

In one of the poorest counties in America. Where people did not have the money to absorb any of these costs before the data center arrived.

💸 THE RENT IS NOW UNAFFORDABLE — IN A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE COULD BARELY AFFORD IT BEFORE

This is the part of the Hyperion story that Bloomberg buried in the middle of its investigation — and that every American needs to read.

Stories like those of the Allens and Logans are playing out across the country as companies such as Meta, Google, and Amazon embark upon an unprecedented AI data center spending spree. These mega-scale projects are helping to grow the U.S. economy and are being welcomed with open arms by local officials eager for a piece of the economic development these projects promise. But locally — Richland Parish’s poorest residents are already being priced out of the rental market by the surge of construction workers earning wages that dwarf local incomes. The housing market in one of America’s poorest counties is being distorted by the arrival of thousands of workers earning Silicon Valley contractor rates. 

Silicon Valley wages. In a county where the median household income is barely above the poverty line. Meeting a housing market that was already unaffordable for local families.

The construction workers can afford the rent. The people who have lived there their entire lives — cannot.

🌿 AND THEN THERE IS THE LAND — DISAPPEARING FOREVER

The Franklins have sold more than 1,700 acres since the groundbreaking — bringing the land dedicated to the project to almost 4,000 acres. Hyperion isn’t quite the size of Manhattan, as Trump suggested it would be — but it continues to grow. Signs across the parish advertise thousands of acres for sale. Morris, a corn and soybean farmer, is weighing whether to sell land his family has held for generations. 

Thousands of acres for sale. In a community where land is not just an asset — it is identity. It is history. It is the tangible connection between a family and the place that made them.

Mark Zuckerberg’s company is worth $1.4 trillion. It is offering prices that families in one of America’s poorest counties cannot say no to.

But once that land is gone — it is gone. The data center will sit on it for decades. And when it is eventually decommissioned — there will be nothing left but concrete and the memory of the corn and soybean fields that used to feed America.

🏭 $5.2 TRILLION BY 2030 — AND RICHLAND PARISH IS JUST THE BEGINNING

Collectively, Meta, Google, Amazon, and OpenAI are projected to invest roughly $630 billion to $700 billion in 2026 alone — a 62% jump from 2025 — with total AI-related data center capital expenditures expected to reach $5.2 TRILLION by 2030. These mega-scale projects — built to power the AI boom and bolster the U.S. race with China for technological dominance — are being welcomed with open arms by local officials eager for economic development. 

$5.2 trillion. By 2030. And they need land. Cheap land. Lots of it. In places with less political power to fight back.

Despite the qualms of the public and politicians, there is a torrent of capital for building new data centers. The biggest technology companies in the U.S. are on pace to spend as much as $1 trillion annually by 2027 on AI. Globally, a recent McKinsey report forecasts spending on data centers will hit $7 trillion by 2030. 

$7 trillion. By 2030. And the Richland Parishes of America — the poor rural counties, the Black Belt communities, the farming towns with unaffordable land prices and desperate local officials — are already on the map.

Here is what the story of Hyperion in Richland Parish, Louisiana tells us about where America is going:

The AI revolution is real. The money is real. The jobs — at least during construction — are real. Tim and Lindsey Allen’s taco business is real. The mayor’s hope is real.

But so are the fatal accidents on roads that were never built for this kind of traffic. So is the farmer weighing whether to sell the land his family has farmed for generations. So are the local families who can no longer afford rent in the county where they were born. So is the community that found out about a $27 billion project — after the deal was already done.

Mark Zuckerberg is building something the size of Manhattan. In one of the poorest corners of America. With 10 gas turbines and $6 billion in energy infrastructure that ratepayers will ultimately fund.

He calls it Hyperion. The people of Richland Parish call it their home.

The question every American needs to ask is: whose vision of that community’s future gets to win?

💬 COMMENT below: If a trillion-dollar company came to YOUR county with a $27 billion data center project — offering to buy your land at prices you have never dreamed of — would you sell? Or would you fight to keep your community the way it is? There is no wrong answer. But it is a question every American needs to think about RIGHT NOW.

👍 LIKE this post if you believe communities deserve to be informed about — and have a genuine say in — projects that will permanently transform the place they call home.

🔁 SHARE THIS with everyone you know in Louisiana, the South, the Midwest, or any rural community that has been approached by data center developers. The Richland Parish story is coming to a county near you. They deserve to see what it really looks like before it arrives.

🔔 FOLLOW this page — we cover the AI data center boom from the ground up. Not from Wall Street. Not from Silicon Valley. From the communities where it is actually happening. Every single day.

📌 SOURCES:
Bloomberg Businessweek — Meta Is Transforming Rural Louisiana With a $200 Billion Data Center (May 15, 2026)
Fortune — Meta’s $27 Billion AI Data Center Is Causing Chaos in Small Town Louisiana (March 26, 2026)
Fortune — Meta Expands Its Already Massive Louisiana Data Center Project (February 9, 2026)
BlackRidge Research — Meta Hyperion AI Data Center Project Updates 2026 (Ongoing)
ClearlyAcquired — Meta’s $27B Hyperion AI Data Center in Louisiana (March 28, 2026)
Meta Data Centers Official — The Largest Meta Data Center Yet Brings Big Impact to Louisiana (February 5, 2026)
BloombergNEF — AI Data Center Build Advances at Full Speed: Five Things to Know (March 24, 2026)
Consumer Reports — AI Data Centers: Big Tech’s Impact on Electric Bills, Water, and More (March 20, 2026)
CNBC — Tiny Data Centers May Be Coming Into the Homes of Americans in the Future (May 9, 2026)
Fortune — Your Utility Bills Keep Going Up. Here’s Everyone You Can Blame (March 1, 2026)

Firefighters in the US say dealing with AI data centers has become a full-time job. And they are being overwhelmed by calls about fires.

As the AI boom accelerates, local communities are raising the alarm over the hidden toll data centers are taking on emergency services and local taxpayers.

The physical demands of artificial intelligence are hitting home in Ohio, where first responders are facing a dramatic surge in emergency calls to massive tech infrastructure sites.

In Jerome Township, northwest of Columbus, emergency crews have responded to two Amazon data centers 84 times in just four years—averaging nearly two incidents per month. The mounting pressure culminated in a devastating two-alarm blaze at one of the facilities, which caused over $50 million in damage and consumed local emergency resources for more than 24 hours. As the physical footprint of the cloud expands, small-town officials are increasingly worried about the physical and financial strain of protecting these high-tech complexes.

Data centers house thousands of high-density servers running continuously, generating intense heat and requiring specialized electrical, battery, and cooling systems. While catastrophic fires are rare, their complexity and the highly secured nature of these facilities complicate emergency responses, making them incredibly difficult to contain. With Ohio hosting over 170 operational data centers and more under construction, local communities are bearing the brunt of the infrastructure boom. While these facilities bring valuable tech investment, they also trigger a hard question: should local taxpayers continue to foot the bill for safeguarding multi-billion-dollar industrial complexes?

source: Joe Wilkins (2026). First Responders Are Being Overwhelmed by Data Center Fires. Futurism.

🚨 : CRISIS IN THE MAKING: Nearly 250 Data Centers Planned Statewide as Nueces County Quietly Negotiates a $9.8B AI Campus - Texas is facing a quiet but explosive crisis as at least 248 new data centers are planned across the state, with nearly half targeting unincorporated rural land where counties have almost no authority to regulate development. What’s unfolding in Hood County, a community of just 62,000 people southwest of Fort Worth is becoming the blueprint for what could soon hit South Texas. Ranchers who live on 118‑acre stretches of rolling hills and live oaks along the Paluxy River Valley are watching their peaceful landscape transform into a battleground. Just 600 yards from their gardens and livestock, developers plan to build a 2,100‑acre hyperscale data center campus nearly six times the size of UT Austin’s main campus, flattening their view into a wall of concrete and server warehouses. Their property, once home to donkeys, chickens, and African antelope, now sits in the shadow of a project whose operators haven’t even been publicly identified the same secrecy and speed now appearing in Nueces County.

The scale of these facilities is staggering. The Comanche Circle project alone, along with two related sites, could require up to 3 gigawatts of electricity enough to power 3 million homes at a time when ERCOT is already struggling to keep up with summer demand. Statewide, developers have requested 439 gigawatts of new power capacity, five times the highest demand ever recorded on the Texas grid, with 89% of those requests coming from data centers. Water use is equally alarming: Comanche Circle will need an initial 95 million gallons just to “flush and fill” its cooling systems, followed by 150,000 gallons per day, the equivalent of 500 households. And this connects directly to the Coastal Bend, where a proposed $9.8 billion AI data center in Calallen the Beacon Point project is already raising red flags. Nueces County Commissioners met behind closed doors on May 13 to discuss the project, offering no public breakdown of tax incentives, no long‑term electric demand disclosures, and no binding water protections, all while the region faces one of the worst water shortages in recent memory. Developers claim they’ll use only 10,000 gallons per day for restrooms and rely on closed‑loop cooling filled from outside the county, but residents remain skeptical as reservoirs drop and restrictions tighten.

Yet counties have almost no power to stop or slow these projects. Texas law gives cities zoning authority, but counties where most of these massive data centers are being targeted are nearly powerless. Hood County tried twice to pause development, only to be warned they were acting outside their authority. Developers openly admit they choose rural Texas because of cheap land, available power lines, and the lack of regulation. But the real power sits inside the Texas Legislature, specifically the House committees that decide whether counties should have zoning authority, water‑use protections, or emergency tools to slow industrial projects. Without legislative action, counties remain defenseless. That’s why Texans are being urged to call their state representative and demand hearings, transparency, and oversight before these projects reshape rural Texas forever.

The Coastal Bend has vast unincorporated land, industrial power infrastructure, and a political climate that favors deregulation, making it a prime target for the next wave of hyperscale data centers. Hut 8 plans to build a massive AI data center campus tied to a proposed 1-gigawatt operation proposed at The Beacon Point site sits just off FM 1694, 525 acres of farmland near neighborhoods, schools like Calallen Elementary, and already‑strained water systems. Residents are asking the same questions Hood County residents asked: Will electric customers be protected from future infrastructure costs? What traffic, noise, and safety impacts will nearby families face? How much tax revenue actually stays local, and who truly benefits from the incentive package? And why are critical negotiations happening largely outside public view? Hood County’s experience shows how fast this can happen and how little counties can do once developers arrive. If Texas doesn’t act and if residents don’t pressure their lawmakers the next place where ranchers look out from their backyard and see a wall of concrete instead of sky won’t be hours away. It will be right here in Calallen, Robstown, Driscoll, Banquete, and the entire Coastal Bend.

Activists just launched a data center tracking site — and you can help.

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich has launched a crowdsourced mapping tool to help communities track and protest the rapid, resource-intensive expansion of AI data centers across the United States.

The Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting website allows residents to log operational, under-construction, or rumored projects, tracking their massive environmental footprint.

Out of over 2,700 initial reports, the largest concentration has emerged from Texas, where a massive 3-gigawatt project by MSB Global in Sulfur Springs is already facing fierce community backlash and multiple lawsuits over its sprawling, 1,600-acre development.

The initiative highlights growing public anxiety over the astronomical resource demands of artificial intelligence infrastructure.

According to data cited by the project, a single large-scale AI data center can consume up to 5 million gallons of water daily—equivalent to the usage of an entire town of up to 50,000 people—threatening local freshwater supplies. Furthermore, the immense electricity demands of these facilities force utility companies to upgrade infrastructure, with the financial burden of these upgrades frequently passed directly to everyday consumers in the form of higher energy bills.

You can contribute to the map by visiting the site.

source: Moon, M. (2026). Erin Brockovich launches a crowdsourced AI data center map. Engadget.