The infrastructure of a small community became a big deal when rumors started circulating in Harlan County, Kentucky, linking the purchase of a local water utility district to an alleged AI data center project in the area.
The county judge-executive, Dan Mosley, didn’t let the story take on a life of its own. He was quick to debunk everything, calling the speculation flat-out fake news and making it crystal clear that no tech company had even come close to knocking on the county’s door. The denial came in a firm, direct tone with zero room for ambiguity — which by itself says a lot about the political and social environment this kind of rumor can stir up in smaller communities.
But the episode raised something much bigger than a simple debunked rumor. It shed light on a debate that’s growing in communities all across the United States: how far does the arrival of AI data centers actually benefit smaller towns, and who gets to decide? The Harlan story mixes misinformation, local politics, natural resource consumption, and a technology that most people use every single day without really knowing where the data is actually stored. 🤔
What actually happened in Harlan County
It all started when news of the upcoming acquisition of the Black Mountain Utility District (BMUD) by Kentucky American Water began circulating through the community’s informal communication channels. In small towns, this kind of move rarely flies under the radar, and interpretations tend to multiply well before any official statement is made. It didn’t take long for the speculation to take shape: someone connected the water district purchase to a supposed arrival of major tech companies looking to build an AI data center in the area. The logic made sense to a lot of people — after all, data centers can consume hundreds of thousands of gallons of purified water per day, since water is used as a cooling agent to keep servers from overheating due to the massive amounts of data they process.
The problem is that this logic had absolutely no factual basis in this particular case. As Mosley was quick to explain, American Water, of which Kentucky American is a subsidiary, is not in the business of building data centers. Their business is treating and distributing water for communities across Kentucky and the rest of the country. I don’t know where somebody could get such a wild conspiracy, Mosley said, but that’s certainly not the case. They’re not a data center company.
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Dan Mosley, who holds the county judge-executive position in Kentucky’s county administrative system, went public to nip the whole thing in the bud. In statements that quickly made the rounds in local outlets, he was categorical: there is no data center project underway, no tech company has made any kind of contact with the county administration, and the BMUD purchase had motivations completely different from what was being attributed on social media. I’ve seen a lot of news out there in other parts of the state and the country, and I ended up researching a little bit just to educate myself more about what these things are, Mosley said, but no data center company has reached out to us. There’s no data center company talking to us about doing a project here.
Even so, the rumor had already done its damage. Before any official denial, the story had spread far enough to generate anxiety, curiosity, and even hope in different pockets of the population. Some residents saw the possibility of an AI data center as a shot at jobs and economic development. Others viewed the situation with suspicion, worried about the impact a facility of that size could have on water resources and on the daily life of a region still carrying the scars of decades of economic dependence on coal mining. That contrast in reactions reveals a lot about the moment communities like Harlan are living through. 🏔️
Misinformation, technology, and small communities
The Harlan County case isn’t an isolated one. Across several American states, the rapid expansion of artificial intelligence infrastructure has been generating a steady stream of speculation in communities that see themselves as potential targets for major tech investments. The phenomenon has an understandable logic: tech companies have been actively seeking regions with access to cheap energy, abundant water, and available land to build their enormous server complexes. Many of these regions are the exact ones carrying histories of deindustrialization and economic stagnation, which makes any rumor of investment big enough to go viral locally at an impressive pace.
Mosley himself lamented the current state of social media and the way it can be used as a tool to perpetuate harmful misinformation. When asked about his position on AI data centers, his response was full of nuance. I still have mixed feelings about them. I went to a conference in July where there was a session that was specifically about data centers, he said. A lady from Maryland spoke about AI being the number one misinformation topic of her career, and she’d been in public service for almost two decades.
Mosley expanded on the point by noting how much of our everyday life depends on data storage. There are so many different devices connected to the cloud. These companies need to have places to store the data we want to keep — the photos we take on our phones, the videos, whether it’s watching YouTube TV or buying products through Amazon Prime or playing fantasy football. All those things we do need to be stored somewhere, he explained. For him, a big part of the misinformation around the topic comes from foreign adversaries who don’t want the United States to have data centers because they want access to the data themselves. I think what it’s going to come down to is: do American citizens want their data stored in the United States, or do they want it stored in China or Russia?
Misinformation in this context works in a peculiar way. It doesn’t necessarily come from bad intentions but from a mix of economic expectations, biased readings of isolated events, and the speed at which social media turns hypotheses into full-blown narratives. When someone sees unusual activity around the water infrastructure of a historically underserved county, it’s almost natural for the mind to jump to the most dramatic and transformative scenario possible. And at a time when artificial intelligence dominates global headlines, connecting any odd dot to an AI data center project has become an almost automatic reflex. 🌐
The real weight of data centers in smaller regions
To understand why rumors like the one in Harlan County gain so much traction, you have to look at what AI data centers actually represent when they arrive in a region. On the positive side, they bring massive infrastructure investments, job creation, significant tax revenue for municipalities, and a modernization of energy and connectivity networks that can benefit the entire surrounding community. For regions that depended on a single industry for decades and watched that industry collapse — as is the case with Kentucky’s coal communities — any promise of economic diversification carries enormous appeal.
On the other hand, the less glamorous side of these projects rarely shows up in the early rumors. While Mosley acknowledges that data centers serve an important purpose, that doesn’t mean he thinks there should be one in every community, and Harlan is no exception. They’re not for everywhere, that’s a fact, he said. What concerns me, especially here, is how it would impact infrastructure. If it’s going to be a strain on our power grid and our water supply, then I’m not going to be for it.
The judge-executive even mentioned alternative methods he’d heard about for keeping data centers cool without draining large reservoirs of drinking water, such as using natural gas and mine water, but he made it clear that all of this was purely hypothetical. Those things would have to be studied and explored to determine if they’d be suitable for Harlan, but I’m not going to be in favor of anything that compromises our electrical and water infrastructure, he stated. I’m not going to be in favor of anything that hurts our citizens, but I’ve also tried to make a reasonable effort to educate myself as much as possible on the topic, because anyone in this position should be doing that.
Public trust as the answer to rumors
Mosley said he remains firm in his determination to do what he believes is best for the county, keeping his focus on the work as he approaches the end of his term rather than getting caught up in critical comments and media distortion that anyone in public office can expect to face. Whenever allegations like these come up, he says he’s quick to point to the audits. Everything we do here is audited by state auditors, who look at every bank account, every program, every receipt, every check, every invoice, he shared. Our report came out the other day and it was a perfect audit, with no findings. A lot of people only read about audits when money is missing.
For him, having a good, focused team makes all the difference in moments like these. Every penny that should be there is there, so I don’t lose much sleep over what people say about it. We take pride in running a government that people can trust and depend on.
In Harlan County, the debate was accidental. It sprang from a baseless rumor, was debunked by Dan Mosley, and left behind a conversation that probably needed to happen anyway. What the episode clearly showed is that small communities are not oblivious to the artificial intelligence revolution. They’re paying attention, hopeful, suspicious, and above all, wanting to have a voice in decisions that could completely change the face of where they live. Ignoring that would be a mistake for tech companies and public officials alike — both of whom need to balance economic development with real quality of life for their residents. 💡
