By Burt Mummolo, FOX23 News
TULSA, (Okla.) — “It’s kind of soap opera-ish, kind of Game of Thrones.”
Community activist Kyle Schmidt isn’t talking about the latest series to binge on Netflix, he’s talking about a lawsuit by a Texas developer against PSO that gives a rare behind the scenes look at the high-stakes world of data center development.
“There’s a lot of money at stake,” he said.
$250 million dollars, that’s the amount of loss claimed by CSW, Central Southwest Texas Development, for two data center projects. “Plaintiff was in the process of developing data centers in Oologah known as Project Waterfall and Sperry known as Project Snowflake.” In order to get power CSW, “applied for a Contract Study (with PSO)…to confirm the availability of electricity.”
While this is happening says the lawsuit, “PSO contracted with a competitor of CSW…for Project Clydesdale,” and that “PSO suggested (CSW) discuss an easement across its property for the use of Project Clydesdale.”
But CSW said no, which is when things got ugly. PSO began dragging its feet, causing delays for CSW, claims the suit.
And that easement for Clydesdale? “PSO sent three pre-condemnation letters for Plaintiff’s property for Project Snowflake.” And that, “PSO did so because it had already contractually committed to providing power to Project Clydesdale without obtaining necessary easements.”
“For PSO to be able to send pre-condemnation notices and start eminent domain to take somebody’s land in order to provide power to a private corporation, it’s not like that line is going to serve other people, that was specifically to serve project Clydesdale. So, that’s a little bit scary,” said Schmidt.
We reached out to PSO who told us, “We strongly disagree with these allegations and intend to respond through the appropriate legal process.” We reached out to CSW’s legal counsel but have yet to hear back.
“I’ll be following this court case for sure,” said Schmidt.
A new twist on the controversy surrounding data centers, showing that battles aren’t only being waged at town halls, they’re being fought in boardrooms as well.
“The whole system just from the outside looking in it looks rigged, it looks like the deck is stacked against the little guy,” said Schmidt.
