Billions for millions: Proposed data center in Tonganoxie faces a vocal opposition
By Lizzie Lively, University Daily Kansan
TONGANOXIE, Kansas – More than half, 60%, of Americans reported not feeling comfortable having a data center in their community, according to a September Pew Research Center poll. The same poll also reported 54% of Americans believe data centers are bad for the environment.
This sentiment was reflected at the Leavenworth County Board of Commissioners meeting last month.
"These developers are picking on small towns, and we want them to know a small town is not a pushover,” resident Dee Karleskint told KMBC during the meeting. “We've got educated people, we've got intelligent people, and we know what this is going to do to the community."
Iin April 2025 the Kansas Legislature passed Senate Bill 98, which provided tax exemptions to corporations seeking to build data centers in the state. This is not a unique bill, but Kansas is in a unique spot this year as a key battleground state because of the Senate election.
And, as it turns out, data centers are a bipartisan issue, one of great interest to the small community of Tonganoxie (population 6,350) in Leavenworth County.
After SB 98 passed, a firm called Cloverleaf proposed Project Bluestem, a data center situated near the Tonganoxie Business Park. According to Cloverleaf, the project would be fully committed to offsetting electricity and water prices that would usually affect the community.
However, a financial analysis from Bluestem in May 2026 reported the project would cost $7 billion and create 50 jobs. Bluestem is also only one of 15 proposed data center projects in Kansas, with five more undergoing construction, according to the data center tracker from More Than Just Parks.
Many Tonganoxie citizens have been vocally against this movement, and feel like the local government has ignored their opposition.
Among the outspoken is Richard Paz, who is running for state House District 38, which includes Tonganoxie. Paz advises Citizens Against Bluestem (CAB), an organization of Tonganoxie citizens protesting the new development.
“It appears to me that a lot of the industry comes into small communities that don’t have the capability to address the overarching costs of these industry developments,” Paz said.
According to Kansas Commerce, the goal of Bluestem, and of SB 98 in general, is to bring economic stability and higher wage jobs to small communities such as Tonganoxie. But Paz, citing outcomes from other states, is concerned with the bandwidth of infrastructure to accommodate a sudden demand for resources.
“I know a lot of the selling points have been that, ‘Hey, this could possibly lower rates,’ but that hasn’t been the case nationally,” Paz said in an interview. “The Southwest Power Pool simply does not have the capacity to provide for all these developments.”
The Southwest Power Pool (SPP) is a nonprofit organization mandated by the federal government that ensures power supplies are distributed and able to be used reliably. SPP had multiple meetings this year to discuss how to accommodate and regulate large scale projects.
CEO and SPP President Barbara Sugg also warned in summer 2024 of possible issues with power supply, especially from new data center projects. According to Sugg, new centers could worsen a power grid already strained by increasing demand and extreme weather conditions.
The weather has been worsening and becoming more erratic within the past 10 years. All 10 of the hottest Julys on record have occurred since 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). Climate change is also a factor in worsening weather events.
Additionally, SPP said current power generators would need to be updated or replaced to accommodate larger scale projects such as data centers.
As Paz put it, in order to get millions, Kansas would have to spend billions.
“I’ve never denied that the project is potentially bringing in millions of dollars of revenue, which the county needs,” he said. “But, again, with SB 98, when you look at the overall ledger of what’s being given up, we are giving up more than we receive.”
The Kansan reached out to the Leavenworth County Commissioner’s office for comment but did not receive a response.
Conversation about resources and data centers has been focused on water, especially in Kansas. But Rex Buchanan, a local water expert and director emeritus for Kansas Geological Survey, isn’t worried.
“If you look at the amount of water that's used for data centers and compare that to, say, irrigation, the water used for irrigation dwarfs pretty much everything else,” Buchanan said. “Do data centers add to that? Well, maybe to a certain extent, but you also have to remember that, particularly out west, a data center, if it’s going to use water, has to have a water right.”
A water right is a right granted by the state that allows people, whether individuals or companies, to pump and use water. Domestic use is exempt, but Bluestem would need a water right in order to pump its own water.
“So, if you buy a water right from somebody that’s already using that water for, say, irrigation, then in some respects, it’s not like a data center is a huge new use,” Buchanan said. “It’s just a different use.”
According to Bluestem’s website, the project would also use a closed water loop, which loops and recycles water to cool down servers. However, the cost of a water right is not comparable to the cost of infrastructure.
“If you live here in Lawrence, for instance, you're buying water from the city of Lawrence, and the city of Lawrence has water rights,” Buchanan said. “I would guess the cost of those water rights is really small compared to the cost of all the infrastructure it takes to move that water and get it to you in terms of pumping and treatment and that sort of thing.”
Paz would rather that money and effort go to his constituents than a data center.
“In order to attract industry, the de facto move is to provide tax exemptions," Paz said. "Which again, in the long run, forgoes revenue that could have been used to provide for basic services and such." been used to provide for basic services and such,” Paz said.
Lizzie Lively is a University of Kansas senior from Overland Park, studying Multimedia Journalism and French
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