The Bureau of Land Management approved what's being reported as the first data center it has ever authorized on public land it manages, and it did so by reusing an environmental review written for a solar project that was scrapped before it broke ground.
The mechanism is the part that should worry anyone who runs BLM multiple-use desert land, not just this one 81-acre parcel inside Boulder City, Nevada. In 2022, a company called Skylar Energy Resources proposed a modest solar-and-battery project on the site. BLM studied that project, approved it, and then watched it sit unbuilt for two years. When the same developer came back in November 2025 asking to build something else entirely, an AI data center, BLM approved it in June 2026 without running a new environmental review or opening a new public comment period. It just pointed back at the old solar paperwork.
"If this isn't challenged, it won't stop in Boulder City, it will become the blueprint for data centers across public lands in the West," said Olivia Tanager, director of the Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter.
The situation
Skylar Energy Resources filed its original application in 2022: up to 19 megawatts of solar power and 35 megawatts of battery storage on 76 acres of BLM land in Eldorado Valley, inside Boulder City's own city limits, about 25 miles southeast of Las Vegas. Eldorado Valley sits in the Mojave Desert, home to the Joshua tree, burrowing owls, desert bighorn sheep, and the desert tortoise among a wider stretch of arid country that runs across 54,000 square miles of the Southwest. BLM ran the process a solar project on public land is supposed to get. A virtual public meeting was held in August 2023. BLM issued a Finding of No Significant Impact and a Decision Record on September 29, with the Environmental Assessment behind it following a few days later that October. It identified five species listed or under consideration for Endangered Species Act protection on the site, including the threatened Mojave desert tortoise, whose habitat covers the entire project footprint, most of it in what the agency itself classified as priority tortoise connectivity habitat.
Then nothing happened. The right-of-way sat unused for roughly two years.
In November 2025, the applicant quietly filed an amended plan of development. Same 76-acre footprint, same right-of-way, different project: a 167-megawatt data center, with a 70-megawatt battery system, an electrical substation, and backup generators running on biodiesel or natural gas. BLM's Decision Record and Determination of NEPA Adequacy, issued June 26, 2026, approved it by treating the 2023 solar-project review as sufficient. There was no new environmental analysis and no new comment period, even though the city hosting the project had already said no. Boulder City's council directed staff to file its own appeal after residents pushed back, separate from the one filed by conservation groups.
What actually changed on the ground
The approved footprint grew slightly in the swap, to 81 acres of an 85-acre right-of-way plus 4 more acres for a linear utility corridor, and the water math changed by an order of magnitude. The solar project's entire construction phase was projected to use about 25 acre-feet of water. The data center's construction alone is projected to use more than 560 acre-feet, roughly 500,000 gallons a day, according to the appeal filed against the approval. The developer's operational estimate, about 2,000 gallons a day once running, doesn't appear to account for a proposed one-time fill of up to 400,000 gallons of water and propylene glycol for the facility's cooling system, per that same filing. Water is planned to come from Boulder City's wastewater treatment plant through an existing pipeline; if that's not enough, the fallback is unspecified commercial sources somewhere within 50 miles.
There's a mismatch in how long any of this is supposed to last, too. The right-of-way has about 27.5 years left on its term. The data center's own plan of development estimates the facility will run for a minimum of 50 years, with room to extend further.
What's driving it
This case is specific to BLM-managed multiple-use public land, and it's worth separating from a related but different federal push: the Department of Energy identified 16 of its own sites, mostly national laboratories, for potential AI-infrastructure development back in April 2025. That's DOE building on land it already controls and operates. Boulder City's Townsite site is BLM land open to the kind of multiple use overlanders, hunters, and desert travelers rely on, approved for an unrelated industrial use through a process that skipped the normal review. The legal question at the center of the Boulder City appeal, whether an old environmental review can be recycled to wave through a categorically different project, isn't unique to this one parcel: it's a mechanism that could apply anywhere BLM has already approved something and a developer wants to swap it later.
What it means for public-lands users
The Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club's Toiyabe Chapter filed a Notice of Appeal and Petition for Stay with the Interior Board of Land Appeals on July 27, 2026, arguing BLM's reliance on the 2023 review was improper.
"It's an outrage that the Trump administration is giving away our public lands to hedge funds for data centers," said Patrick Donnelly, the Center's Great Basin director.
Whether the stay is granted determines whether construction can proceed while the appeal is pending; no ruling had been issued as of this writing. Not every objection has come from environmental groups.
"I believe placing such a facility in a water-starved desert where we see increasingly hot summers year over year is about the most shortsighted decision any level of government could possibly make," said Brynn DeLorimier, a Boulder City business owner.
Congress has its own response moving: Rep. Rashida Tlaib introduced H.R. 9939, the No AI Data Centers on Federal Lands Act, which would ban large AI data centers on federal land outright and require existing ones to be removed. The bill names the Boulder City project as part of what prompted it.
Frequently asked questions
Is this the first data center BLM has approved on public land?
It's being reported as the first data center BLM has approved on public land it manages. DOE's separate national-laboratory sites are a different category of federal land.
Can construction start while the appeal is pending?
That depends on whether the Interior Board of Land Appeals grants the stay petition filed alongside the appeal. No ruling had been issued as of this writing.
Does this affect BLM land outside Nevada?
Not directly yet. The concern raised by the appellants is precedent: the same mechanism, an old environmental review reused to approve an unrelated project, isn't limited to this one parcel.
How we reported this
This article draws on the following sources:
- Notice of Appeal and Petition for Stay, filed with the Interior Board of Land Appeals by the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club, July 27, 2026. Primary source for the project timeline, acreage, species list, and water figures.
- Appeal Challenges Public Lands Data Center in Nevada, Center for Biological Diversity, July 27, 2026. Source of the Donnelly and Tanager quotes.
- Critics race to stop Boulder City data center before it sets a national precedent, Las Vegas Review-Journal, July 27, 2026.
- How feds swapped a solar farm for a data center outside Boulder City, KTNV Las Vegas.
- This city said no to data centers, but the feds approved. Now the city is fighting back, KUNC, July 30, 2026.
- Rep. Tlaib introduces a bill to ban AI data centers on federal lands, Office of Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
- DOE Identifies 16 Federal Sites Across the Country for Data Center and AI Infrastructure Development, U.S. Department of Energy, April 2025. Background only, a separate program from the Boulder City case.