As Controversy Swirls Around Power Plant, Western Pocahontas Stays Silent
Nine months ago, the giant landowner publicly promised to support environmentally friendly development in the area
Last October, Western Pocahontas Properties held public meetings in Davis and Thomas to share its vision of environmentally friendly growth and development on its landholdings in the area.
The company had long maintained a low profile despite being the largest private landowner in Tucker County, so public interest in the company’s plans was intense.
As a standing-room-only crowd in the Davis Town Hall listened intently, Western Pocahontas representatives sketched out long-term plans for affordable housing, recreation facilities, and a new urgent care center. The company pledged the developments would protect waterways and other environmentally sensitive areas.
However, public records indicate that company officials left an important piece of information out of the presentations.
Just three months earlier, Western Pocahontas had signed an agreement to sell a parcel of land near Davis and Thomas to a newly created company called Fundamental Data, regulatory documents filed with the state indicate. The land is intended to be the site of a large power plant, according to the regulatory document. (The document doesn’t identify the seller of the property, but the specified location of the power plant was on land owned by Western Pocahontas.)
The intended use of the electricity generated by the power plant is to run data centers, Fundamental Data indicated in another regulatory filing.
The size of the parcel of land subject to the sale is unknown because no other public records of the transaction are available yet. The Wall Street Journal, citing a statement from Fundamental Data, said the project will be “among the largest data center campuses in the world,” eventually encompassing as much as 10,000 acres.
After news of the power plant became public, Davis Mayor Al Tomson sought more information about it from Western Pocahontas. Tomson said a company executive explained that he couldn’t discuss the issue because of a nondisclosure agreement.
Tomson has become a prominent critic of the power plant and data center complex, citing concerns about pollution, water usage, and the lack of information about the proposed facility. In a recent interview, Tomson said Western Pocahontas has been a good corporate citizen in the past, but he is perplexed by the company’s behavior regarding the power plant and data center complex.
“Western Pocahontas has been really good for the town to work with in terms of acquiring land through donations,” Tomson said, citing as an example a parcel donated to expand the cemetery. “I’ve had a great working relationship with Western Pocahontas, and I enjoy working with them because they’re very professional.”
“Western Pocahontas has been really good for the town to work with in terms of acquiring land through donations.”
When asked if he still considers Western Pocahontas a good corporate citizen, Tomson paused and sighed. “I do, for the most part,” he said. “We’re kind of at opposite sides of the equation for the power plant. They’re in the business of selling land, and that’s what they’re doing.”
Tomson said he arranged Western Pocahontas’s October public presentation in Davis “so that the community would have a better understanding of some of the things that they have in their short- and long-term plans.” When asked whether Western Pocahontas deceived the community at that meeting by not mentioning the land sale agreement with Fundamental Data, Tomson replied, “I don’t know that I feel like they deceived the community. I think they maybe didn’t think it through.”
Country Roads News sought comment for this story from numerous other local officials, businesses, and nonprofits who have dealt with Western Pocahontas. Most declined, with some citing the need to maintain a good relationship with the dominant private landholder in the county.
Country Roads News also made numerous efforts to reach Western Pocahontas officials for comment on this story but received no reply (see more details about those efforts at the bottom of this story).
Casey Chapman, who is listed as Fundamental Data’s “authorized representative” on the company’s air permit application, declined to comment for this story.
Impact of Corridor H
At the public presentations in October, Western Pocahontas Vice President Rich Flanigan said the company’s development plans assume that Corridor H will be extended via the “ROPA” route between Davis and Thomas. Many local residents and businesses favor a route north of Thomas instead. Highway officials have not made a final decision yet on the route for that section of Corridor H.
Western Pocahontas did not draw up contingency plans for a northern route, Flanigan said at the October public hearings, because no official proposal for a northern route exists and there are too many challenges for a northern route to get built.
However, the proposed power plant, which was still secret at that time, may be another reason why Western Pocahontas dismissed the idea of a northern route.
Olivia Miller, program director for the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy, said if Corridor H is extended via a northern route, it likely would be impossible to build a power plant in its proposed location and the adjacent data centers that would follow.
Miller added that the potential for projects that offer few local jobs while threatening the area’s water supply and quiet, small-town character are among the dangers that the Highlands Conservancy has been warning about for decades in its battles to stop, slow, or reroute Corridor H.
The Highlands Conservancy and other local groups opposed to the power plant have requested a meeting with Western Pocahontas to discuss the issue, Miller said. That request, made on July 21, so far has produced no response from Western Pocahontas, Miller said.
What’s known about Western Pocahontas
Western Pocahontas Properties is an affiliate in a complicated web of companies. It is controlled by Corbin J. Robertson, Jr., who is also the CEO of Texas-based Natural Resource Partners (NRP). That company is involved in steel, energy, chemicals, construction, and carbon capture, among other industries. In a statement on its website, NRP pledges to operate “in a manner that protects our natural environment and the safety and well-being of our employees and communities.”
Robertson’s family history in resource extraction dates back to 1918, when his grandfather Hugh Roy Cullen got started in the oil business. Investments in mining and other operations followed. Robertson formed Western Pocahontas Properties in 1986 “to acquire all of the coal, timber and surface rights of CSX Corporation,” a railroad company, according to Quintana Resources, which is among Robertson’s holdings.
A recent update to the Tucker County Comprehensive Plan, which was drafted with input from Western Pocahontas, has a short section about the company which includes the following information:
Western Pocahontas owns about 38,000 acres in Tucker County.
The company gets a “greatly reduced rate” on its property taxes for managed timberland.
The federal Abandoned Mine Economic Revitalization Program awarded the company $25 million in 2023 to revitalize the Davis area including the creation of multi-family dwellings, art projects, trails, and other projects. The state of West Virginia awarded the company $25 million in 2022 to develop worker and residential housing in Tucker and Grant Counties.
The company’s development plans for the Davis-Thomas area are sometimes referred to as Corbin Valley. Those plans “will showcase and preserve the natural environment while creating sustainable, responsible, and environmentally sensitive residential and economic development focused on cultural growth and connectivity,” the comprehensive plan states. The document also stresses the need for “collaboration with the local community.”
Conservation efforts
Western Pocahontas has been involved with various conservation efforts in the area. The Nature Conservancy purchased the 1,971-acre Big Cove parcel from Western Pocahontas in 2023 for $4.14 million. The Nature Conservancy also recently purchased the 1,393-acre Dobbin Slashings from Western Pocahontas.
The Nature Conservancy is among the organizations that declined to comment for this story.
Several people contacted for this story said it is difficult to get in touch with Western Pocahontas officials to inquire about purchasing land. The company closed its local office years ago and it no longer has an office accessible to the public in Tucker County.
Ed Fulton, who owns a local construction and real estate business, purchased land from Western Pocahontas for a riverfront housing development that’s currently under construction in Thomas.
Fulton said he reached out to Western Pocahontas’s office in Huntington, WV to inquire about purchasing the land for the development. Fulton said he’s also partnering with Western Pocahontas on a workforce housing project in Thomas that’s still in the planning stage.
Fulton said that it can be challenging to get the company interested in a project, but once the wheels are in motion, working with Western Pocahontas is like working with any other big corporation.
“Nothing happens overnight with larger companies,” Fulton said.
More about the reporting for this story
Country Roads News sought comment for this story from Western Pocahontas Vice President Rich Flanigan and from Roy Bechtol, president of a land planning firm that works with Western Pocahontas. They did not reply to multiple phone calls, texts, and emails.
Country Roads News also called multiple phone numbers at several offices of Natural Resource Partners. The only response received was from a woman in investor relations who said all inquiries about Western Pocahontas should be directed to Rich Flanigan.
Steven Leyh, executive director of the Tucker County Development Authority, declined to comment for this story. Tucker County Commission President Mike Rosenau and Thomas Mayor Jody Flanagan did not return calls, emails and texts seeking comment for this story.
Fantastic reporting, thanks for putting in the work to keep communities informed.
So the company has received $50 million in federal and state money for affordable housing in the last few years? What on earth are they doing with it?