A farm not for sale<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Huddleston was offered $60,000 an acre for her 71-acre property, while Bare declined a $48,000-an-acre offer for her 463-acre farm, according to LEX18. Together, those offers add up to more than $26 million, a figure most families would struggle to ignore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Huddleston\u2019s answer has stayed plain. \u201cI don\u2019t want your money, I don\u2019t need your money,\u201d she told LEX 18, later adding, \u201cI\u2019m staying put.\u201d Bare has also raised concerns that the company behind the project has not been publicly identified, saying that secrecy matters when people are deciding \u201cwhat you\u2019re going to do with the rest of your life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The family\u2019s land is part of a 1,200-acre Mason County farm that has been worked for generations. For them, the offer is not just a business deal. It is a request to trade soil<\/a>, cattle, memories, and future harvests for a one-time check.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The proposed project is not a small server room tucked behind an office park. Application materials described a hyperscale campus near Big Pond Pike, Germantown Road, and Valley Pike Road, with six data center buildings, mechanical yards, substations, water tanks, storm ponds, and other infrastructure. The total site area is listed at about 2,080 acres, with roughly 1,350 acres, or about 2.1 square miles, expected to be disturbed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That size helps explain why rural land is becoming so attractive. Data centers need space, high-capacity power, cooling systems, and utility connections. The U.S. Department of Energy<\/a> says data centers used about 4.4 percent of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and could rise to between 6.7 and 12 percent by 2028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In everyday terms, the \u201ccloud\u201d is not really floating anywhere. It sits in big buildings full of equipment that runs hot, pulls power, and must be cooled around the clock. For neighbors, that can mean questions about construction traffic, noise, backup systems, grid upgrades<\/a>, and yes, the electric bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Water is one of the biggest concerns for residents who live near proposed data centers. The Environmental Protection Agency<\/a> says developers should engage early with local water utilities, examine how demand could affect supply and rates, and consider cooling systems that reduce the need for potable water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Mason County application says the project would use a \u201cclosed-loop\u201d liquid-cooled system that recirculates fluid and would consume \u201czero water for cooling during normal operations.\u201d It also says water would come from the Western Mason Water District and the City of Maysville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That detail matters. But it does not erase every concern. Closed-loop systems can reduce water demand, but residents still want clear answers about construction needs, emergency operations, long-term monitoring, and who verifies the numbers once the buildings are running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The local fight also lands in a national pattern. The <\/a>USDA\u2019s 2022 Census of Agriculture<\/a> found that the United States had about 1.9 million farms and 880 million acres of farmland, down 20.1 million acres from 2017. That farmland still made up 39 percent of all U.S. land, but the direction was clear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kentucky is seeing the same kind of pressure. State agriculture officials said Kentucky\u2019s farm count fell from 75,966 in 2017 to 69,425 in 2022, while agricultural acreage dropped from 13 million acres to 12.4 million acres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Against that backdrop, Huddleston and Bare\u2019s refusal becomes more than a family story. It is a reminder that farmland is not easily replaced. Once fertile ground is paved, graded, or wired into an industrial campus, it cannot be unplugged like a server rack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Supporters frame the project as an economic engine. An economic development official previously said the data center could create 400 full-time jobs and more than 1,500 construction jobs, making it one of Mason County\u2019s largest employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But project materials later described roughly 300 badge-in workers, including about 100 full-time employees, with construction expected to begin in summer 2027. That gap is exactly why some residents remain cautious. Big job numbers sound good, especially in a rural county, but people want to know which jobs are permanent, who gets them, and what the community gives up in return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the end of the day, this is not a simple fight between technology and tradition. It is about whether the benefits of a data center can outweigh the permanent conversion of working land. For a family that sees the farm as a living inheritance, the math still does not add up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The official zoning process is still moving. The City of Maysville\u2019s data center information page says the Mason County Fiscal Court held a first reading on May 12, 2026, and scheduled a special meeting for May 22, 2026, for a second reading and consideration of the ordinance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Delsia](\"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/kentucky-farmland-data-center-dispute-delsia-bare.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
Why data centers want rural land<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Read More: A mother and daughter near Maysville turned down $26 million to sell farmland for a data center, and their blunt reason is that feeding the country matters more than a tech buyer paying roughly 10 times the land\u2019s farm value<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Food, water, and trust<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Farmland is already shrinking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Read More: Astronomers confirm for the first time the existence of a giant volcanic cave on Venus<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
Jobs versus permanence<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
What happens next?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n