Data Centers Bringing Major New Pollution Sources to San Antonio’s West Side

Editor's Note: A version of this story was previously published in the Water & Power newsletter. Subscribe to all of Deceleration's newsletters here.

Close to 100 anxious area residents gathered a week and a half ago inside a plush Marriott hotel meeting room a short hike from SeaWorld on San Antonio’s Far West Side to voice their concern about a massive AI data center going up blocks away. 

They complained about noise and dust and loss of tree canopy from area data center construction (and there’s a lot of it these days) only to be told that the company up for review, Vantage Data Centers LLC, is complying with all existing local ordinances.

One woman, who said she was part of a military family recently relocated to San Antonio, said bright lights at night were disrupting her sleep. She got little sympathy from company representatives or regulators from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) at the front of the room.

Others complained about water use and potential contaminated water discharge from Vantage Data Center’s expanding footprint only to be told that the facility’s “closed-loop” cooling system made water a non-issue. When challenged, the TCEQ reps admitted that they didn’t actually bring any members of their water team to the meeting so they couldn’t, in fact, answer any water-related questions.

There were no fact sheets or maps provided for residents. And at times it was unclear what facility was being discussed.

TCEQ Blocks Most Questions

Simmering tensions grew increasingly strained as the night wore on and panelists deflected most questions that fell outside of the parameters of the permit in question: a federal Title V operating permit for Vantage’s TX2 facility at 5207 Rogers Road, a two-story, 215,000 square-foot data center expansion. It is the second major facility on the 30-some-acre lot. A three-story data center is already operating—at least partially.

Vantage's Rogers Road operations lifted off without a hearing or local input. A letter filed by opponents in February states that the TCEQ approved the original air permit the same day it was filed by the company.

The federal permit in question is required now, however, due to the area’s poor air quality and Vantage’s desire to now more than double its existing 32 diesel generators approved for the location to 65.

Residents were outraged at the lack of consultation and how advanced operations are already.

“What pisses me off is seeing Third World infrastructure fricking being developed and [people] being forced to deal with low air quality issues,” said a resident of the Alamo Ranch community, who described himself as a combat veteran and cancer survivor.

"I was in Kuwait where they don't care to have standards, you know, fumes, toxic dust, everything floating around. … Why are we knocking in so many of these data centers in such a small area that's already zoned for residential?"

Scale of the Project

Vantage’s TX2 facility would join a larger Vantage facility with an associated gas-fired power plant and dozens of generators capable of firing up anytime that power is threatened by brownouts or blackouts or during summertime peak demand hours when the state grid operator, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, requests heavy users—like data centers—to stop drawing power from the grid.

Unsurprisingly, the company representatives at the hearing took a broad view of what would quality as an emergency triggering the need for backup power.

“Vantage doesn’t necessary have insight into all of the end uses of all their customer-tenants on the racks,” said Emily Weissinger, of the global engineering group, Ramboll, on behalf of Vantage Data Centers.

“I will say that data center industry in general serves a broad variety of uses including emergency call centers and driverless cars, so I think in that sense it very much would be an emergency when a lot of these data centers do lose their power.” 

Vantage is building another facility farther to the west—this one at 14720 Omicron Drive, nearby other operating centers, including Microsoft—that could have as many as 84 diesel generators. Few in the audience could have been aware that Vantage also plans for gas-fired power plants at both locations that would run constantly—a fact not included in the federal operating permit that prompted this hearing or volunteered by any of the panelists.

Questions off that veered from the specific permit were frequently swatted down by the panelists.

“Is anybody going to monitor the air quality [during construction]?” asked a woman named Mattie who said that Vantage’s operations would be 500 feet behind her home. “I already have three air purifiers for my home from when they cleared the land. … There was no dust abatement.”

“There may be other elements in the TCEQ that monitor air quality, such as ambient air quality, however we are not that,” said Alfredo Mendoza, of TCEQ’s Air Permits Division. “We are the Title V operating program.”

What about informing the public and media about future permits when water is discussed? 

“That’s operating under the assumption that they are going to have a water permit,” said Katelyn Ding, a TCEQ staff attorney within the Environmental Law Division. “That’s not what we’re here for today.”

Water Use & Air Quality

While the Houston Advanced Research Center expects Texas-based data centers could be sucking up 160 billion gallons per year by 2030, Michael Duplantis, vice president of environmental health and safety for Vantage’s North American operations, said by using a “closed loop” cooling system with a 25-percent glycol mixture the company could limit TX2's total water use to approximate that of a 30-room hotel.

Another speaker describing her concerns as ranging from water to air quality to energy urged a more comprehensive discussion. 

From the TCEQ she received mostly incoherent bureaucratese in response.

“I can’t speak on behalf of New Source Review, that’s an entirely different section of TCEQ,” said Mendoza. “We are a Title V, the federal permits operation program, and we incorporate New Source Review by reference. We don’t issue them.”

“So this meeting is about air quality, but it’s not really,” the frustrated questioner concluded before stepping away from the mic.

The boos from attendees only grew louder as the night progressed.

It was Vantage’s Duplantis who sought to break out of TCEQ’s administrative jargon in an attempt to calm the waters.

He described the permitting process as “two-step,” whereby the state issues some permits, but that the increasing scale of desired operations have kicked some aspects up to federal regulators. This hearing allowed TCEQ to collect community concerns that they will summarize and deliver to EPA. The feds will use that information to help determine if they will grant the required federal air operating permit.

“[TX2] is of a size and a magnitude that they need to put more controls on top of us to make sure we do the things we should do,” said Duplantis.

This fact was seized upon by Adrian Shelley, director of the nonprofit Public Citizen’s Texas operations, who accused the TCEQ of “reverse engineering” the amount of anticipated pollution recorded in the draft permit to assist the company secure its objective.

How Big is Vantage Data Center TX2?

'A Sham Permit'

For instance, Shelley said, the TCEQ regulators calculated the company’s existing batch of generators at 113 hours of expected annual use per unit. However, for TX2 they reduced the hours for proposed new generators to 57 annual hours. This helped keep the total expected pollution below 100 tons per year, a threshold that would have otherwise triggered a need for pre-construction permits.

“[Vantage] adds another 32 generators and [the TCEQ] just halved the number of hours of operation in order to stay under that threshold,” Shelley said. “They’re just reverse engineering the math,” Shelley said. “That’s not the way it’s done. … As a result, we’ve got a sham permit. We have a permit that’s not based on actual emissions calculations.”

Those emissions matter, as one child in attendance testified on the mic, especially for residents living with asthma.

Diesel generators and gas-fired power plants, after all, release a range of pollutants that are directly harmful or assist in the generation of unhealthy air quality, including ground-level ozone.

But it wasn’t until hours into the meeting that the elephant in the room emerged when Shelley, followed by a staff attorney for the Environmental Integrity Project, raised the issue of the power plant.

“Vantage cannot obtain power for the data center from the utility,” said Gabriel Clark-Leach, a senior attorney with the Environmental Integrity Project. “So it has arranged to have a power plant constructed on the same site as the data center. This power plant is designed to run at maximum capacity every hour, every single day. It will also emit ozone-forming pollutants as well as hazardous air pollutants like formaldehyde.”

It is unclear if the power plant at the Rogers Road location is already operational. Vantage did not answer Deceleration's question on the matter.

Many of those attending applauded Shelley’s complaint that a comprehensive hearing should have been convened to allow the community to discuss the power plant plus the data center plus the dozens upon dozens of diesel generators as one permit.

“The EPA has determined in other facilities, the Stargate facility in Abilene, that a co-located data center and power plant should be treated as a single source,” Shelley said. “And that should be done here.”

And a Gas-Fired Power Plant?

However, the 150MW power plant was yet another element of the company’s operations the panelists weren’t discussing.

Mark Freeman, Vantage Data Center’s Vice President of Global Marketing, provided Deceleration the following statement:

“Vantage Data Centers appreciates everyone who took the time to participate in the TX2 hearing and share their views. While the hearing focused on a specific air permit, we understand that community members raised broader questions about growth, environmental impacts and how projects like this fit into the future of San Antonio. We take those concerns seriously. Our approach is to continue listening, provide clear and factual information, and work in good faith with regulators and the community as the process moves forward. We are committed to operating responsibly and being a constructive long-term partner in the communities where we build and operate.”

As frustrating as the hearing was for most residents in attendance, it would not have happened at all without the intervention of two state electeds—Texas state Rep. Philip Cortez (District 117) and Texas state Senator Roland Gutierrez (District 19)—who requested a hearing from TCEQ.

Tying it Back to CPS Energy

DeeDee Belmares, a local community organizer who assisted in a block walking effort involving Public Citizen and the Southwest Workers Union, said the City-owned electric and gas utility CPS Energy could do more to check the expansion of data centers in the city.

Accounting differs on how many data centers are already operating in San Antonio. While the local water utility reported just over 20 tied into their system at a May 2026 public meeting, an industry-run Data Center Map shows more than 50 data centers in the city (while another industry source, Baxtel, lists 69). January 2026 CPS Energy data showed 59 new data centers somewhere in their pipeline between those already contracted for power and those pending review.

Belmares says that CPS Energy is expecting demand to sour in the years ahead in keeping with, in part, a modestly growing population. But they have been slow to break out how much of that demand is actually predicated on data centers.

“We’re seeing it in San Antonio, we’re seeing it all across the state: bills are going to go up because CPS wants to meet the demand of the data centers," she said. "They’re saying residential demand is going up, but also month’s board meeting…where is it on the commercial side? Why don’t you show us both sides?

For those working in energy justice, like the Climate Justice San Antonio coalition, June will be a "month of action" activating the public while hounding CPS Energy and Council members on issues of data centers, rate hikes, and a shifting utility generation plan, she said.

A "phone zap" event hosted by CJSA this past Sunday was advertised with this announcement:

"We're calling CPS Energy board members and letting them know community will NOT stand by while our rates are raised, disconnections continue, and data centers have the red carpet rolled out for them."

What's Next?

Members of San Antonio's City Council have expressed mixed feelings about how much reform may be required, as was displayed in a May 2026 public discussion with some praising the jobs-creation potential of the centers as others leaned into misgivings. Cities with stringent zoning rules have the most influence on a process that is still largely beyond their ability to control, limits revealing themselves in Hill County, which recently rescinded its first-in-the-state moratorium on data center development. 

City officials, led by D6 Councilmember Ric Galvan, have begun exploring breaking data centers into their own zoning classification to better control where they build. Currently, the head of development services said the zoning landscape of overly permissive of data centers, allowing them most everywhere not specifically designated as residential. However, the only elected official we spotted at the hearing was Texas state Rep. Josey Garcia (D-124). But, yeah, the TCEQ did schedule it on a Spurs game night.

"Our Development Services Department is holding stakeholder meetings to discuss future zoning efforts," Cavazos wrote Deceleration (full quote in our Water & Power newsletter). "They have already held one meeting, with the next meeting scheduled later in June."

Deceleration will update this story with meeting details when they are available.