Privacy-safe county data show 2,247 anonymous residential sites within two miles and 5,701 within three. Fifteen schools or childcare locations also sit within three miles of the filed perimeter.
Anchor investigation · CC-001
Pacifico Cedar Creek
A proposed 710 MW natural-gas generation facility at 382 Earl Callahan Road, evaluated here as both a standalone JETI applicant and part of an emerging data-center and energy corridor.
Site-suitability conclusion
This project should seek another location
The conclusion is about this site—not a claim that no large power project could ever be built responsibly. A 710 MW plant requires an industrial setting with adequate buffers, emergency capacity, water, access, and a complete permitting record.
The site is in D2 Severe Drought as of July 21, 2026, in a region shaped by the 2011 Bastrop Complex and 2015 Hidden Pines fires. Industrial-fire capability remains unverified.
The filing pairs the plant with roughly 490 MW of IT load while Amazon and multiple EdgeConneX-related campuses are assembling along the same corridor.
What a more suitable site would demonstrate before approval
- Substantial separation from homes, schools, and childcare.
- Verified fire-water, apparatus, staffing, mutual aid, and evacuation capacity for the full buildout.
- A sustainable water source tested against drought and cumulative demand.
- Full major-source and aggregation analysis for every turbine, generator, and related operation.
- Road, pipeline, transmission, noise, lighting, and drainage infrastructure suited to continuous industrial use.
Why there is a Supplement 1
Separated for JETI. Still connected in the filing.
Pacifico first filed JETI application J0049 in June 2026. It then filed a dated July 16 follow-up—Supplement 1—within the same application record to revise and clarify material being evaluated by the Comptroller, including project scope, maps, excluded existing improvements, the competing-site narrative, and the economic-benefit model. It is not a separate project or a replacement for the original filing; both must be read together.
The JETI project is generation only
Pacifico now says its qualified project consists solely of the natural-gas generation facility. It excludes all data-center assets, buildings, operations, investment, and property.
Supplement 1, page 3The data center is described as unrelated
Pacifico says a third party would own, finance, develop, and operate the adjacent data center, with no Pacifico ownership or operational control.
Supplement 1, page 3The scale relationship remains
The filing still pairs approximately 710 MW of generation with approximately 490 MW of IT load and anticipates a data-center operator as primary off-taker for part of the output.
Trace this finding →Methane-fired generation at community scale
The technology is industrial. The surrounding land use is residential.
Natural gas is composed primarily of methane. Pacifico proposes a 710 MW facility using multiple simple-cycle combustion turbines, fast-start peaking turbines, fuel-gas compressors, air-cooled equipment, transformers, switchgear, tanks and emissions controls. That equipment creates siting questions that cannot be answered by calling natural gas “clean” or by considering each permit in isolation.
Combustion controls reduce pollution; they do not eliminate it.
EPA identifies nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide as primary gas-turbine pollutants, with volatile organic compounds, hazardous air pollutants and particulate matter also possible. Nitrogen oxides and VOCs also help form ground-level ozone. EPA associates elevated NO₂ with airway irritation and worsened asthma, particle pollution with heart and lung effects, and ozone with airway inflammation and asthma attacks. With homes, schools and childcare close to the filed perimeter, the public needs the actual emissions inventory, operating hours, stack data and dispersion modeling—not technology labels.
A daytime sound check cannot represent an around-the-clock plant.
Turbine inlets and exhausts, compressors, cooling fans, transformers and other rotating equipment create broadband, tonal and low-frequency sound. DOE materials specifically flag high levels of low-frequency noise as a gas-turbine concern in data-center energy systems. If the plant follows a constant hyperscale computing load, nearby receptors could experience persistent nighttime operation; Pacifico’s actual duty cycle remains unfiled. A receptor-by-receptor study must cover normal operation, starts, shutdowns and emergencies.
The hazard is larger than a flame at the turbine.
The proposed system adds high-volume methane delivery and compression, hot turbine enclosures and exhausts, lubricating oils, transformers, switchgear and other ignition or fuel sources. NFPA maintains a dedicated power-plant fire-protection standard for hazards of this kind. In severe drought and a wildfire-affected landscape, approval should require a project-specific hazard analysis, leak detection, fixed suppression, fire-water calculations, apparatus access, evacuation analysis and verified local mutual-aid capability.
Simple-cycle generation rejects a large amount of heat.
In a simple-cycle turbine, high-temperature exhaust is not routed through a steam bottoming cycle to make additional electricity. EPA says turbine exhaust remains several hundred degrees, and EIA reports simple-cycle systems use substantially more fuel per unit of electricity than combined-cycle plants. Pacifico also lists air-cooled fin-fan equipment and Organic Rankine Cycle units, but their final configuration is unknown. This does not prove a particular off-site temperature increase; it does require quantified heat-rejection, exhaust-plume and summer microclimate analysis before siting the plant beside an existing community.
“Peaking” equipment does not answer how the full campus will run.
Pacifico describes dedicated, reliable generation supporting approximately 490 MW of IT load, plus fast-start peaking turbines. That makes the missing hourly operating profile critical: residents need to know which units can run, for how long, how often they start, what happens during grid or equipment failures, and how the plant combines with backup generators and other corridor sources. Health, noise, heat and emergency impacts must be modeled cumulatively for the maximum reasonably foreseeable buildout.
Project record
What is filed—and what each number means
Applicant figures are reported as applicant figures. Filing status is not operational status.
- Applicant
- Pacifico Cedar Creek LLC
- Filed site
- 382 Earl Callahan Road, Cedar Creek, Texas
- Generation
- 710 MW site-rated redundant power
- Associated IT load
- Approximately 490 MW
- Investment
- $2.237 billion in the revised consultant model
- Permanent jobs
- 25 applicant-projected positions
- Starting payroll
- About $3.5M, down from about $6.2M
- Property
- Narrative says ~2,842 acres; listed parcels total ~2,810
Risk record
Why this location requires a higher evidentiary bar
Each card distinguishes a verified regional condition from a missing project-specific showing.
Wildfire and emergency response
The regional fire history is verified. The project-specific fire-water system, apparatus access, industrial-response capability, staffing, and evacuation consequences are not yet public.
Air emissions
The applicant identifies turbines and emissions controls, but the exact unit inventory, stacks, operating hours, emissions limits, and dispersion modeling remain unavailable.
Water supply
The original filing listed a groundwater permit as pending an Aqua WSC feasibility study. Final source, annual demand, well configuration, and drought implications remain unresolved.
Noise and lighting
No project-specific public noise study or final layout establishes continuous, startup, shutdown, tonal, or low-frequency impacts at nearby receptors.
Traffic, access, and evacuation
County and TxDOT access approvals were listed as pending. Construction traffic, heavy-haul routes, emergency access, and shared evacuation bottlenecks require cumulative review.
Drainage and land disturbance
The applicant’s narrative covers thousands of acres, while civil, grading, drainage, and OSSF records have not yet been assembled into a public site-impact record.
Public finance
The project seeks school-tax relief while its comparative financial proof remains confidential and its named Ohio alternative is presently paused by local moratorium.
Cumulative industrialization
The facility would enter a corridor with three large data-center filings. Power, water, roads, substations, pipelines, backup generation, and emergency response cannot be assessed in isolation.
Statewide precedent—not a Pacifico allegation
Review the full buildout before local approvals make it a fait accompli.
The Texas Tribune and Floodlight documented Texas projects that first obtained minor air authorizations and later pursued much larger turbine or generator fleets. EPA guidance warns that permit restrictions or project segmentation that do not reflect the planned operation can circumvent major-source preconstruction review.
There is no public evidence in this record that Pacifico has already used that tactic. The lesson is procedural: the county should require one full-buildout account of every turbine, generator, stack, operating scenario, affiliated facility, and co-located load before tax abatements, grading, or other discretionary approvals move ahead.
JETI decision standard
The public claim is not the statutory finding
Pacifico has stated that incentives matter. The Comptroller must still determine that the agreement is a compelling factor and that the investment would not occur in Texas without it.
§403.609(b)(3) remains in force
The failed SB 2322 proposal cannot be used as though it created an exemption for dispatchable generation.
Read the statuteThe comparative scenarios are confidential
The public supplement describes the selection process but does not disclose the scenarios needed to independently test the counterfactual.
Read Supplement 1Ohio is paused and contingent
Pacifico acknowledges a local moratorium and says the site may only be reconsidered after it expires.
Review the evidence chain →Research agenda
Nine questions that can change the case
These are not rhetorical questions. Each names the next record needed.
CriticalTurbines
Manufacturer, model, unit count, ratings, and duty cycle?
Next evidence: TCEQ equipment inventory and NSR application
CriticalAir
Stack heights, locations, exit conditions, annual hours, and modeled receptors?
Next evidence: TCEQ application and dispersion-modeling files
CriticalWater
Aqua WSC service, groundwater wells, or a hybrid supply—and what annual demand?
Next evidence: Aqua feasibility study and groundwater-district records
CriticalFire
Fire-water storage, pump redundancy, hydrants, apparatus access, and suppression design?
Next evidence: County and fire-jurisdiction plan review
HighSite
Why does the sum of listed parcel acreage differ from the narrative site acreage?
Next evidence: Parcel records, survey exhibits, and boundary GIS
CriticalOwnership
Who is the unrelated third-party data-center developer, and what affiliate, financing, control, or exclusivity relationships exist?
Next evidence: Corporate, contract, site-control, and Comptroller records
CriticalOfftake
Is there a signed PPA, capacity agreement, term sheet, letter of intent, exclusivity agreement, or reservation?
Next evidence: Non-confidential agreement descriptions and records requests
CriticalJETI
What specific competing-site evidence is confidential, and does any currently actionable alternative exist?
Next evidence: Land, permitting, utility, corporate, and Comptroller records
HighEconomics
Why did starting permanent payroll fall roughly 44% while headcount remained 25?
Next evidence: Underlying wage, occupation, benefits, and escalation assumptions
Primary record
Start with the filings
The dossier is a reading layer over the source—not a substitute for it.
DOC-0001 · June 2026Applicant filing in government record
JETI Application J0049
Original application describing the energy and data-center relationship, project boundary, equipment, permitting status, and modeled economic benefits.
Open source PDFDOC-0008 · July 16, 2026Applicant filing in government record
Pacifico Cedar Creek JETI Application Supplement 1
Narrows the JETI project to the gas-generation facility, expands the compelling-factor narrative, identifies the paused Ohio alternative, maps excluded existing improvements, and revises the economic model.
Open source PDF