Mercer County, Kentucky Fiscal Court Unanimously Rejects Zoning That Would Have Allowed Hyperscale Data Centers Beside Coal Plant

confirmed Importance 7/10 ~1 min read 2 sources

The Kentucky Lantern reports that the Mercer County Fiscal Court rejected zoning regulations on Monday that would have allowed the siting of large data centers on land adjacent to a Kentucky Utilities coal-fired power plant. The unanimous vote came at a special meeting and sends the proposed regulations back to a planning and zoning commission. The county had passed a one-year moratorium on data center construction in August that would have expired automatically had the fiscal court adopted the regulations.

County Judge-Executive Sarah Steele said “I am not completely anti-data center, but we have to get this right before we approve it” to more than 170 people at the meeting. Earlier instruments in this fight are in 2026-08-17–mercer-county-ky-hyperscale-opposition-anthropic-tied-datacenter.

Sources & Citations

[1] Mercer County officials reject regulations to allow data centers next to coal-fired power plant — Kentucky Lantern · Sep 29, 2026 Tier 2

[2] Data Centers: Weekly Briefing // September 28 - October 1, 2026 — Strisker (newsletter) · Oct 2, 2026 Tier 3

Tiers Tier 1 court records & gov docs · Tier 2 established outlets · Tier 3 regional & specialty press · Tier 4 opinion or single-source. Methodology →

Cite this entry

The Cascade Ledger. “Mercer County, Kentucky Fiscal Court Unanimously Rejects Zoning That Would Have Allowed Hyperscale Data Centers Beside Coal Plant.” The Capture Cascade Timeline, September 29, 2026. https://capturecascade.org/event/2026-09-29--mercer-county-ky-fiscal-court-rejects-hyperscale-zoning-next-to-coal-plant/