Pacifico’s Air-Permit Application: Where the Technical Review Stands

Does it reconcile with itself? No.

Pacifico’s site-wide summary reports 233.61 tons per year of nitrogen oxides, or NOx. The PGM70 schedule lists 11 turbines and displays a per-unit NOx value of 1.33 tons per year, but its group subtotal is 7.98 tons—exactly six times the displayed per-unit value.

Applying the displayed values to all 11 listed PGM70 turbines, while leaving the rest of Pacifico’s calculation unchanged, produces the following independent adjustment. Because the displayed per-unit values are rounded, these are diagnostic—not definitive corrected totals.

A second schedule conflict narrows the claimed margin

One table assigns the SMT60 group 8,760 normal operating hours; the detailed calculation uses 4,380 normal hours plus startup and shutdown. Combining the higher schedule with the PGM70 adjustment produces approximately 249.02 tons per year of NOx. That screen assumes the 8,760-hour entry is operative rather than a table error; it is not an agency determination and still remains just below 250 tons.

Other unreconciled items

• The unit worksheets appear to total approximately 12.33 tons per year of sulfuric-acid mist, but that pollutant is absent from the site-wide summary.
• The worksheets say their operating scenarios “shall not be used to limit” actual hours, startup and shutdown events, or natural-gas firing.
• The released filing does not assemble a clear source-wide annual cap, averaging period, monitoring method, calculation procedure, recordkeeping system, and reporting mechanism for the public to test.

Does the application reconcile with the rest of the record? No.

The project appears under different affiliated Pacifico entities and materially different descriptions depending on the filing. The record identifies affiliated Pacifico special-purpose entities under shared governance; it does not establish that Pacifico controls Black Chamber, the data-center operator. TCEQ—not this review—must determine any legal aggregation, stationary-source, or support-facility consequence.

Aqua studied a water configuration tied to an older plant description

Aqua’s operative feasibility study evaluated a developer-supplied domestic profile of 23 living-unit equivalents, 9 gallons per minute maximum-day demand, and 14 gallons per minute peak-hour demand. The exhibit in that same packet still depicts industrial plant elements, including an ORC, chiller yards, turbines, and gas-turbine-wash and fire tanks. Aqua’s June 3 minutes say the earlier request was tabled after the developer “has been identified as a data center” and would need a revised feasibility study. The public record does not contain a later study reconciling the subsequent project changes.

Did conflicting descriptions sit in government records without a public reconciliation? Yes.

The relevant point is chronology, not accusation. The public record shows materially different descriptions overlapping while agencies evaluated the project; it does not establish which person made any change, that a filing was intentionally misleading, or that Pacifico plans to restore omitted equipment.

Does the project fit the permit track TCEQ is reviewing? The public record does not resolve it.

Earlier project records included an Organic Rankine Cycle, or ORC, that would recover gas-turbine exhaust heat through thermal-oil and cyclopentane equipment to generate additional electricity. Released correspondence shows TCEQ staff raised the possibility that the configuration could be treated as a fossil-fuel-fired steam-electric plant—a named PSD category potentially subject to a 100-ton-per-year threshold when the regulatory heat-input qualification is met.

Pacifico disputed that view. On August 11, TCEQ advised that the proposed legal path had not cleared and referred the question to its Office of Legal Services. Three days later, the submitted application described only simple-cycle turbines. It contains no ORC, Rankine or bottoming cycle, cyclopentane system, thermal-oil loop, HRSG, or comparable exhaust-energy-recovery equipment—and no statement that the earlier ORC had been permanently abandoned.

• If the ORC was permanently abandoned, applying the general 250-ton threshold to the represented simple-cycle project has a legally plausible basis.
• If the ORC was deferred or remains part of an integrated project, the 100-ton classification and complete-project scope questions could return.
• If excluded heat-recovery equipment is proposed later, TCEQ should require a new written, source-wide preconstruction and PSD applicability determination before construction.

Aqua approved Pacifico’s water-service item; the NSSA comes next

The following recap comes from a resident who attended Aqua Water Supply Corporation’s September 1 Board meeting. Aqua has posted the agenda, but says the September minutes will remain pending until the October Board meeting. Until Aqua publishes its official record, the meeting account, vote details, presentation contents, and speaker statements below remain attendee-reported.

The short version

• The Board first approved Item 5, authorizing a letter supporting Lost Pines Groundwater Conservation District’s opposition to high-volume data-center water use.
• Ten residents then challenged the continued use of Aqua’s June Pacifico feasibility study, comparing it with later JETI and TCEQ records and asking for a delay.
• LPGCD General Manager Elvis Hernandez said Pacifico’s stated request was not large and identified larger-volume exports toward San Antonio as the district’s greater concern.
• Pacifico developer Nayanika Panickar was called during public comment and passed without speaking.
• Garver, Aqua’s engineering consultant, gave an approximately 18-minute presentation about the June study. Attendees say it included a site-plan image not found in the feasibility study Aqua had released; the image appeared to show one data-center building and raised a potentially material record question when compared with other public plans reviewed by Lost Pines Watch.
• General Manager Dacy Cameron said Pacifico had confirmed that full-buildout demand remained 23 LUEs despite project changes and that Aqua could provide that amount.
• The Board then approved Item 6, Resolution 26.09.01, over two no votes, according to attendees, with no substantive Board discussion before the vote. Many attendees stood and left, some audibly expressing disappointment.

What happens next

The feasibility-study vote was not an executed water contract or the start of service. The consequential terms—demand, flow or LUE limits, capacity, infrastructure, costs, easements, deadlines, and safeguards—now move into negotiation of the Non-Standard Service Agreement, or NSSA.

Attendees say they understood Glass to promise continued communication and Cameron to say she would negotiate guardrails, with the completed agreement expected to return to the Board for a vote. Because the signed resolution remains unavailable, those reported commitments require written confirmation in Aqua’s official record and continued public follow-up. Residents should demand the signed resolution and Garver presentation now; publication of all written material supporting the 23-LUE “full buildout” representation and every non-privileged NSSA draft and redline; meaningful notice before any Board vote; and the final executed agreement. The reported presentation and Aqua’s tariff and Developer Guide also warrant records-based review, but this account does not itself establish a legal or tariff violation. The two no votes matter: Aqua did not act unanimously, and the water dispute now moves from feasibility to the terms of the binding agreement.

Six things the agency should resolve

1. 01

   Publish both deficiency notices, Pacifico’s complete responses, every reworked or revised application and emissions workbook, the final technical review, and a change log identifying each correction.

2. 02

   Reconcile the 11-unit PGM70 schedule and six-unit-equivalent subtotals, the SMT60 operating schedules, the sulfuric-acid-mist summary, and TCEQ’s final source-wide totals.

3. 03

   Identify every enforceable source-wide annual limit, averaging period, and monitoring, calculation, recordkeeping, reporting, and certification method.

4. 04

   State whether the ORC was permanently abandoned. If excluded, expressly identify every ORC, Rankine or bottoming cycle, cyclopentane system, thermal-oil loop, HRSG, or comparable heat-recovery system not authorized.

5. 05

   Issue a written, source-wide PSD applicability determination identifying whether the 100- or 250-ton threshold applies and why the complete project qualifies for the EGU Standard Permit.

6. 06

   Reconcile the source boundary, Pacifico affiliate roles, data-center relationship, grid configuration, auxiliary equipment, and support facilities—and require case-by-case authorization if the complete project does not qualify for this track.

Residents do not need to prove that Pacifico is already over a PSD threshold to justify these requests. The applicant and agency must produce a coherent, public, and enforceable record showing what is being authorized and why it qualifies.