Comanche Circle Data Centers, Tolar, Texas

Hood County commissioners approved the Comanche Circle data center campus without conditions, voting 3 to 1 on June 9, 2026, near Tolar and the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant. Commissioner Nannette Samuelson cast the lone dissenting vote and Commissioner Dave Eagle was absent; developer Ryan Hughes, founder of Florida-based Sailfish Investors, did not attend, citing safety concerns. Commissioners dropped the conditions they had set at January's conditional-approval stage, saying engineering, drainage, water, wastewater and environmental questions would be worked out later, at the site development plan stage.

"I am asking this court to show some backbone today," resident Joanne Thomas told the court. "Call a bad faith actor exactly what he is." Hood County Judge-elect Mark Lowrey asked how the county could trust a project whose representative "doesn't even have the respect or the courage to come in here," and resident Brian Crawford said, "Ryan Hughes is telling this court to pound sand." When a woman in the crowd asked commissioners how much they were being paid, County Attorney Matt Mills answered, "Not a dime," adding, "You're accusing people of being crooks. I'm tired of that."

Texas counties have only the powers the legislature grants them and, unlike cities, no zoning authority, so Hood County cannot simply refuse a project like this. "Texas has always viewed counties as rural toddlers that can't be trusted with full powers," said Robert Paterson, a University of Texas at Austin professor of land use and environmental planning. Two attempts at a moratorium in Hood County have failed and developers have sued the county twice, in one case seeking no less than $250,000 in damages; state law has long favored development and property rights, Mills told the crowd.

Eight data centers are proposed on more than 7,600 acres in Hood County, a rural county of about 62,000 people southwest of Fort Worth, with Comanche Circle's 2,100 acres the largest. A water district's minutes put Comanche Circle's request at 150,000 gallons a day after an initial 95-million-gallon "flush and fill" for construction, but Hughes told the Tribune that figure was wrong and his three data center proposals in the county combined would use less than 50,000 gallons a day of groundwater at full build.