New details emerge regarding proposed data center

The Project Saltworks data center took another step in its development by having the developers address local concerns in their first public meeting appearance last week.

Project Saltworks is proposed on 867 acres of land between FM 61 and FM 209. The project will support up to 15 data center buildings, substations and on-site infrastructure that the company said will be set back from property lines and local residences.

Representatives of Headwaters Site Development and Stream Data Centers shared new information Thursday, Dec. 4 regarding a proposed data center project and addressed community concerns with the Graham City Council.

The company held an open house Thursday and will have two additional meetings scheduled for Jan. 13, 2026 and Jan. 29, 2026, with locations pending.

Data center buildings

Headwaters is an independent affiliate of Stream and its front end development partner. 

“We’re experts in location strategy, data center diligence and site selection, so we identify the best properties for hyperscale data center developers,” Headwaters Site Development Senior Project Development Manager Curtis Miller said. “(We) do all the front end development work to bring them to the market.”

Stream could take over the data center project and roll it into its portfolio and develop the project or another hyperscaler buyer, such as Google or Meta, could purchase the project from Headwaters and be the developer and owner and operator of the facility.

Stream Data Centers Chief Development Officer and Headwaters Senior VP of Development Oisín Ó Murchú said the site in Young County came on their radar around a year ago due to its unique infrastructure. 

With the site selection process, the company looks at minimal infrastructure buildout.

“This location, the reason it’s so prime for data center development, is there’s five 345 KV lines on the property and numerous 138 KV lines, which we anticipate will not require extension of additional transmission lines to the property. They’ll be able to build onsite substations,” Murchú said.

The company currently has an electrical load request pending with Oncor requesting one gigawatt of power to supply the buildings.

The project is looking at a 5-10 year construction period with the building to be in place for 30-50 years, or longer. The company stated that the two approaches are a smaller number of larger buildings or a larger number of smaller buildings.

Each building could be under one company or they could be multiple companies. Murchú said the reason the company has not shared specific details regarding the project is that it will depend on who the user will be, with one not yet determined.

“Generally, with these types of developments, we see one user come in and want to control the whole development,” Murchú said. “We anticipate this development will be one user, but there could be a scenario where there’s buildings with different tenants.”

The company has stated that the first building could have a value of $1 billion, but that also could change depending on the hyperscale user. Murchú said the buildings could be valued from $600-800 million to upward of $2 billion.

“Generally, the mechanical, electrical scope associated with the building is very expensive, so that makes up a lot of what they call the real property section of it,” Murchú said. “Then there’s everything that goes into the building, which makes up the rest of that billion dollars.”

Water usage

The company stated that the estimated initial fill of the closed-loop cooling system for the data center would be 165,000 gallons and will not require ongoing flushing or refilling. That estimated amount could also change based on the user of the facility.

“The intent is that it’s filled initially and never refilled or drained again,” Murchú  said. “To drain it would require shutting down the facility, and that goes against the whole design parameters that that’s intended to do. There’s a third party consultant that comes and monitors the quality of the solution to make sure that it’s operating. There’s really no evaporation.”

The project is in the service area of Fort Belknap Water Supply Corporation (FBWSC), which is a wholesale customer of the city of Graham. FBWSC has an agreement with the city to receive 28 million gallons of water per month based on the elevation of Lake Graham.

The city currently draws around one billion gallons of water per year from Lake Graham and Lake Eddleman for its city customers and wholesale customers.

Fort Belknap’s annual contract allows for an allocation of 335 million gallons per year.

In public comment, aside from the 165,000 gallons for the cooling system, a number of 17,000 gallons per day of use at a data center for an annual usage of 6.2 gallons per year was mentioned.

“That take represents less than 2% of the total water available that we would have to pump under contract anyway at the maximum,” City Manager Eric Garretty said. “...A 2% increase in water draw from Fort Belknap will not drain the lake.”

Project Limestone in Young County was proposed to be a hydrogen production facility from Plug Power located along FM 209 that was announced recently to have been suspended.

Plug currently has a reservation for 350,000 per day of reclaimed water that was in the past discharged into Salt Creek. The reclaimed water is potable water and does not impact the level of Lake Graham. 

Plug has not transferred its water agreement to a data center developer. That transfer would require consent of the city council and no such proposal has been made, according to Garretty.

Headwaters is in active talks with Plug for the potential purchasing of equipment and assets. Murchú said that while nothing has been finalized, when they have a definitive agreement with Plug Power, they will let the public know in a public meeting.

Project development

Part of the site development includes studying the land, soul, environment, power access, water, roads and other details. 
When asked by a member of the public, the company stated it would not be publicly releasing its environmental impact study, but could reconsider that decision.

While the representatives of the company said they do not require additional land, they said they are open to the conversation with adjacent landowners.

The company will have a “self-imposed” buffer for the development. Acquiring more land could help to establish more of a buffer zone for the project, but also if land is available where they could fit additional buildings Murchú said they are open to pursuing that option.

“Generally, a large building setback would be 50 feet to 100 feet. For this development, I think we’re looking at 400 to 500 feet, and probably more between any property boundary and any building,” he said. “What we really want to come across is we are looking at the responsible way to develop this property.”

The company is looking to use existing trees to maintain around the edges of the property and will also have a restriction of 45 decibels of noise at any residences and 55 decibels of noise at the property boundaries.

“We’re doing noise studies at the moment to analyze to take ambient noise conditions out there and compare our noise model against the ambient conditions based on decibels and hertz, and how that noise would actually impact surrounding areas,” Murchú said.

City Council Member Jack Little received confirmation from the company that the project was a “done deal” as well as a confirmation that they would accept the city monitoring the volume of sewer water provided to the site.

Several city council and the city manager have met with representatives of a proposed data center, with Garretty stating he has met with developers across multiple potential projects.

Annexation and abatements

While Garretty said there are no pending requests from any developer requesting annexation into the city or economic development incentives pending from Headwaters or Stream, Murchú said they would look into a city abatement should an annexation occur.

The company said it wants all available taxing entities to benefit from the added taxable value added from the proposed project.

“Everybody out here should benefit from this development,” Murchú said. “We didn’t talk about annexing (with the city of Graham). We talked about a development agreement with impact fees, where they would extend water service and sewer service to the property and we would enter into a development agreement that would have impact fees for municipal services.”

The agreement with the company and the city is not formalized and will be explored by the company at a later period.

“We intend, I’d say over the next probably two months to try and formalize that ask, be it through annexation or be it through a development agreement, to ensure that the city gets revenue from this development that helps us improve its water service, sewer service, pave roads and fund the fire department, provide whatever services the city needs to do,” Murchú said.

Murchú said cities and counties prefer Payments in Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) through an abatement because it is predictable revenue that they can plan for in their budgets. 

“From the perspective of the PILOT structure, generally it’s around the predictability for the local area,” Murchú said. “There’s significant cost associated with bringing in this scale of a development here so the reason for the ask (for the abatement) is to help with that initial cost of development.”

Unlike industry or manufacturing facilities, Murchú said the data centers refresh their technology so there is no equipment depreciation over time. 

“The equipment is refreshed, so the tax value actually refreshes and stays consistent over time, so you don’t have that fallout,” he said.

The company said that once they start showing up on Young County Commissioners Court meeting agendas, they are anticipating it will take approximately two to three months before an abatement is presented.

The city council will add an item on a future council agenda to allow the city manager to conduct negotiations on a development agreement with Headwaters.

“What we want to do is engage, put a plan together and get the plan written in a contract and a document so it’s a commitment that the development has to meet that way, if it’s Stream, or whoever it is, they have to live up to that requirement,” Murchú said.