Sulphur Springs Mayor Tyler Law addressed a few of the rumors circulating regarding the upcoming data center, a brief overview on the special city council meeting on Friday, March 20, and gave updates regarding the library’s renovations during a recent meeting of Sulphur Springs Rotary Club.
“Please reach out to me,” Law said. “I have not turned a single person away that’s come to me personally to speak about any questions with the City — on anything.”
Data Center
According to Law, depending on how quickly the data center develops, the City could be seeing revenue changes of upwards of $100,000 a year. This would result in the City being able to fix roads and other public infrastructure without a tax burden on residents.
“The more revenue we have for the city, and it’s not being derived and putting the burden on residents, the more new tax revenue would elevate those issues — is really what we’re trying to do,” Law said. “Bring in new businesses, new industry, that also allows our citizens to live here and earn a good living here.”
Law spoke about speculation and rumors posted on community Facebook pages regarding the data center, specifically about electricity and water usage.
“One of them was the electric bills are going to go up here, locally,” Law said. “Not true. I’m not saying electricity prices aren’t going to go up, but that’s a regional market.”
According to Law, who has a background in the oil and gas industry as President of E&B Natural Resources, the prices regarding electricity will correlate with the prices of natural gas.
“Pipeline companies in this state are working very hard to get more gas from West Texas to more of the metropolitan areas,” Law said.
To help supply natural power to power plants, energy transfer has begun on two billion cubic feet a day lines, according to Law. There are tons of natural gasses in the Permian Basin, the second largest shale gas producing region in the U.S., making up a large portion of West Texas and Southeastern New Mexico. As the shale-plays mature, they produce more gas than they do warmth, resulting in an excess of gas, according to Law.
“The more of the West Texas gas we can get to Houston, Austin, San Antonio and Dallas, that is gonna help hopefully alleviate that,” Law said.
According to Law, the war in Iran could change outcomes. Law said the Iranian attacks having knocked out 17% of Qatar’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) export capacity. This has threatened supply chains, estimating between three and five years offline and $20 billion in lost annual revenue for Qatar and global markets.
Residents on Facebook have speculated the data center will be connected to the power grid, causing electricity prices to skyrocket for the average consumer. According to Law, it takes a minimum of three years for entities to connect to the grid.
“It’s physically impossible for a data center that’s producing its own power to increase our power bills when it’s not tied to the grid where we are all getting our power,” Law said.
According to Law, the modern data centers are much different than the first ones built in the U.S. that primarily use water to cool internal systems. The data center coming to Sulphur Springs will have a closed-loop system, keeping water usage low, and will use air cooling for primary ventilation.
The city has allocated up to six million gallons of water per day to the data center, half of that is from the wastewater treatment plant that would be returned to the creek following treatment. The other three million would come from the population’s drinking water. The City currently has 32-33 million gallons of water availability per day. Residents only using around five, according to Law.
“The data center pushed back and said, ‘We’re not really going to need all of that,’” Law said. “We’ve allocated more than they’ll need, but we’re not going to give them more. That’s it.”
Special Meeting The Sulphur Springs-Hopkins County Economic Development Corporation currently owns approximately 32.65 acres along Interstate 30 that sits within the City of Sulphur Springs extraterritorial jurisdiction. This property is intended for industrial use including manufacturing, warehousing, distribution and other heavy industrial operations. Armstrong Steel Buildings, a company out of Colorado, has been working with the EDC since December of 2024 to try and get new business in the city. Armstrong is expected to create over 40 jobs for the area, according to Law.
During a special meeting Friday, March 20, the City Council approved a request for annexation for the 32 acres on which the Armstrong site and other land is located.
“That is a long process,” Law said. “We’re really excited about that, it’s a big investment in the community.”
The annexation will allow the city to have full authority to enforce building inspections or certain development standards.
Library
The Sulphur Springs Public Library has some upcoming renovations planned. This remodel will include large and small meeting areas with retractable walls for flexibility. They will not be expanding the floor plan, just remodeling.
“I’m really excited about that,” Law said. “Our library does a great job, and if you haven’t been up there, I encourage you to go see it.'