Nancy White Returns: BESS Battles Data Centers

0:00 · Both

Show open, then Zach sits down with Nancy after she spent the day in Bowie County — not the city — at commissioners court.

1:52 · Zach

Hello and welcome to The Zach Rateliff Show. I’m Zach. This is my friend Nancy. What’s up, Nancy? How are you?

1:58 · Nancy

Oh, I’m dandy. How are you?

2:15 · Zach

You were here today in Bowie County talking about data centers, giving testimony at commissioners court. Give us a wrap-up. How did this start? I’m still on the fence about data centers, which is funny — us being friends, you being where you are, and me being like, I don’t know.

3:20 · Nancy

It’s actually okay. Most people think I am anti-data center, and that’s actually not the case. I hold them to accountability. If you’re going to do any business, asking them to prove safety and reliability is a natural request. I can be a stickler about what that means.

4:00 · Nancy

Here in Bowie County you’re being inundated with solar, batteries, and now data centers. Bowie County doesn’t have a fire marshal. That’s something I said today that I feel so strongly about. It doesn’t matter where you go in America, they’ll tell you progress is going to happen. There’s nothing you can do about it. So if you can’t stop progress, what do you do? You make sure it’s done safely, with the people you’re meant to protect in mind.

4:40 · Nancy

The purpose of government wasn’t to control us. It was parameters to enforce our constitutional rights — to serve and protect us. Asking elected officials to show us where health, safety, and welfare were taken into account for a big corporate industry is not unreasonable, especially when they’re trying to put it in our backyard.

5:00 · Nancy

There’s two sides of the property line. I’m all for property rights. I would never tell someone what to do on their land. You want to sell your land, that’s fine. I have a right to question the corporate entity that comes in after you, to make sure they’re not impacting my property rights, my way of life, my health. In a location like Bowie County, when you don’t have anybody verifying that, that’s negligence of duty.

5:22 · Zach

Are we guaranteed that all data centers have battery backups in them?

5:30 · Nancy

No. That’s part of what you’re trying to find out. You don’t know what they have. Majority will — think of it like your house. If you lose power, you want a backup. I lost power five and a half days when a derecho came through last year. Straight-line winds. Trees took the poles. We got a generator. That’s a family home. If the power crashes and the entire system is trash, you’re going to need a plan. That’s where you’re likely going to see battery storage — the Band-Aid.

8:00 · Nancy

I provided them a federal lawsuit — New York and California — a battery storage system that contaminated a water district. When batteries go into thermal runaway they put out PFAS, forever chemicals, super hard if not impossible to clean up, especially in your water. In that docket the fire-suppression system ran about thirty hours, releasing 2.2 million gallons of water contaminated with electrolytes and PFAS, going into the ground, into the aquifer.

14:00 · Nancy

Van Zandt has a fire marshal enforcing the law, a restraining order, a moratorium since February, NFPA 855 fights. I brought the court fire codes, that lawsuit, an op-ed on moratoriums, Austin County’s moratorium south of here in Bellville. I had ten minutes. I used about eight and a half. No questions from the commissioners.

20:00 · Nancy

My goal is I show up with action steps. We know the problems. What can we do to get the answers? Hire a self-funded fire marshal. Site-specific emergency plans — including school evacuations. A moratorium like Austin County’s so you can pause for the governor’s audit. Verify no banned tech — Chinese, Russian. Follow-up email to all five commissioners with the resources.

28:00 · Nancy

How can you set a limit on something you don’t even know what limit to begin looking at? Bowie County has water, but treatment and wells are the real question. Known impacts plus nobody verifying equals a county that is flying blind.

34:00 · Nancy

There’s the China question — components, CATL, open-source software, contracts. In Van Zandt a battery proposal knocked about $70,000 off two acres. That’s not a brochure problem. That’s a family’s equity.

40:00 · Nancy

If you’re going to have progress, you should have checks and balances like anything else. If you’re going to do it, do it right. I shouldn’t know you’re there.

43:30 · Zach

That’s the standard. Thank you, Nancy. God bless you.