In the Allegheny Highlands of West Virginia, a quiet battle is unfolding over the future of rural America. At its center is a 2025 state law that fast-tracks the development of data centers and power plants, overriding local zoning and environmental safeguards. For residents like Nikki Forrester, co-founder of the grassroots coalition Tucker United, the legislation represents an existential threat to a way of life that has endured for generations.
“Our future is being human — together — in each little pocket of the planet we call home,” Forrester writes in a recent essay, reflecting the sentiment of many who feel their communities are being sold out to out-of-state interests. The law, which preempts local control, has been touted by state officials as a boon for economic development, but critics argue it is a giveaway to speculative developers and AI companies seeking cheap land and lax regulation.
Forrester, who lives in Davis, a town of 600 people, describes a community that thrives on connection and self-sufficiency. “We grow our food, build our homes, fix our cars and always pass things along before throwing them away,” she says. But the proposed 10,000-acre complex, which would include a power plant and data centers, threatens to transform the forested landscape into an industrial zone. A representative for the Virginia-based developer reportedly dismissed local concerns, referring to the area as “the middle of nowhere” and the power plant as “just a drop in the bucket.”
Such dismissiveness has galvanized opposition. Tucker United, alongside other advocacy groups, has raised alarms about the environmental impact: deforestation, flooding, water pollution, and air quality degradation. They also point to the irony that West Virginia has the lowest artificial intelligence usage in the country, with roughly 80 percent of households lacking reliable high-speed internet. “We’re now being dragged at breakneck speed into a digital future that isn’t ours,” Forrester writes.
The fight in West Virginia is part of a broader national and global debate over the costs of AI infrastructure. From Finland, where police are investigating Google's forest clearing for a data center, to the U.S., where rural communities are increasingly bearing the burden of hyperscale projects, the tension between technological progress and environmental stewardship is acute. Finnish authorities are probing similar concerns, underscoring the international scope of the issue.
Forrester and her neighbors argue that the benefits of AI development are overstated. “State officials, speculative developers and out-of-state AI companies tout empty promises of economic benefits and good-paying jobs, while overlooking the costs and brushing off our concerns,” she says. Instead, she points to a future that already exists in the region’s mountains, gardens, and town meetings—a future built on community resilience and a deep connection to the land.
The stakes extend beyond West Virginia. As political battles intensify across the country, rural voices are demanding a seat at the table in decisions that shape their lives. The data center fight has also drawn attention to legal challenges involving the state’s attorney general, who has faced backlash for subpoenaing climate advocacy groups—a move seen by some as an attempt to silence dissent.
For Forrester, the issue is not about rejecting technology outright but about ensuring that progress does not come at the expense of people and place. “We know the harm caused by endless extraction,” she writes. “Our future is saying no to yet another extractive industry and saying yes to the way of life West Virginians have already built together.”
As the world races to build the infrastructure for artificial intelligence, the residents of Tucker County are asking a fundamental question: Who gets to decide what progress looks like? Their answer, rooted in a deep sense of place, may offer a roadmap for other communities facing similar pressures.
