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Nobody Is Looking at the Whole Picture... And That's Not an Accident

  • Writer: ProtectMcCrackenCounty
    ProtectMcCrackenCounty
  • May 19
  • 8 min read

Three separate federal agencies. Three separate reviews. Each examining one piece of what's happening in McCracken County. In isolation. Here's why that gap exists, why it matters, and why the Planning Commission may be the only body that can close it.


Imagine you are building a house. You hire three separate inspectors — one for the foundation, one for the electrical, one for the plumbing. Each inspector looks only at their assigned system. None of them is required to look at how all three systems interact. And nobody ever hires a fourth inspector to look at the house as a whole.


Now imagine that house is being built on contaminated ground, next to a river that five million people drink from, using nuclear materials — and the stakes are not a house but a community's environmental and financial future for the next half century.


That is the regulatory situation in McCracken County right now.


Three separate federal processes are each examining one piece of what is happening here. None of them is required to look at all of it together. And the gap between them — the space where the whole picture should be but isn't — is where the greatest risks to this community live.


The three processes — what each covers, and what each misses


Process 1: The NRC licensing review for GLE


The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is currently reviewing GLE's application to construct and operate the Paducah Laser Enrichment Facility. As part of that review, the NRC published a draft Environmental Impact Statement in March 2026 — a document evaluating the environmental impacts of GLE's facility.


The draft EIS evaluates the environmental impacts of the proposed action of issuing a license that would authorize GLE to construct and operate a uranium enrichment facility on a 322-acre site located in McCracken County, Kentucky, approximately 5 miles west of Paducah. Axios


322 acres. GLE's facility. That is what the NRC's EIS covers.


What it does not cover: the active contamination plumes migrating from the adjacent Superfund site onto and beneath GLE's land. General Matter's uranium enrichment facility on the Superfund site itself. The proposed data center and small modular nuclear reactor on the same Superfund site. The cumulative water impacts on the Ohio River from all facilities combined. The interaction between GLE's construction and the pump-and-treat systems that are currently preventing Superfund contamination from reaching the river.


The NRC is not required to evaluate any of those things. Its mandate is GLE's facility.


Full stop.


The Kentucky Resources Council has formally challenged even that narrow review — arguing that in failing to use site-specific data to study potential environmental impacts, the NRC's review could be violating the National Environmental Policy Act, a legal framework designed to assess the impacts of projects, regulations, or policies. Datacenterbans


In other words: even the limited review that exists may not be adequate. And it is still only looking at one piece of the picture.


Source: Federal Register, NRC Draft EIS — GLE (March 27, 2026): https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/03/27/2026-05955; Kentucky Resources Council NRC petition (May 5, 2026): https://kyrc.org


Process 2: CERCLA and the Federal Facilities Agreement


The Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant Superfund site is governed by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act — CERCLA — and specifically by a three-party Federal Facilities Agreement between the DOE, the EPA, and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. This agreement establishes legally binding cleanup obligations, milestones, and oversight responsibilities.


The Kentucky Division of Waste Management provides independent and regulatory oversight of the cleanup of the PGDP site and functions as Kentucky's representative in the Federal Facilities Agreement. MultiState


The Federal Facilities Agreement governs what happens on the federal reservation — the 3,556-acre Superfund site itself. It is focused on remediating the existing contamination: the TCE plumes, the technetium-99 in the groundwater, the PCBs in the creek tributaries, the PFAS contamination still migrating from the Fire Training Area.


What it does not cover: GLE's privately owned 665-acre parcel next door — which is outside the federal reservation and therefore outside the FFA's jurisdiction. General Matter's new uranium enrichment operations on the leased portions of the federal site — which are new industrial activities layered on top of the cleanup rather than part of it. The proposed data center and SMR — which don't exist yet and haven't triggered their own regulatory framework. The cumulative impact of all of this on the regional groundwater and the Ohio River.


CERCLA and the FFA are backward-looking by design — they exist to clean up what was done. They are not equipped to evaluate what is being added.



Process 3: NEPA review for the DOE data center solicitation


The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to assess the environmental impacts of major federal actions. When the DOE selected Paducah as one of four federal sites for private AI data center and energy generation development, that federal action — and any subsequent award to a private company — will trigger a NEPA environmental review.


That review has not started. Because no award has been announced.


When it does start — if and when a data center company is selected — the NEPA review will evaluate the environmental impacts of that specific project: the data center, the SMR, the infrastructure, the water use, the grid connection. It will be conducted by the DOE, the same agency that is simultaneously overseeing the Superfund cleanup and marketing the land to private developers.


What it will not be required to cover: GLE's facility on adjacent private land — which is not a federal action and therefore not subject to NEPA. General Matter's operations on the Superfund site — which have their own separate regulatory treatment. The cumulative impact of all projects together.


Three federal processes. Three separate pieces. No one required to look at the whole.


Source: DOE Office of Environmental Management data center solicitation (July 2025); DOE press release — Paducah site selection (August 2025)


Why does this gap exist?


This is the question that sounds conspiratorial but has a mundane answer: it is a structural feature of how federal environmental law is organized, not a deliberate scheme to harm Paducah.


Federal environmental law developed over decades, with different statutes addressing different problems. CERCLA was designed for legacy contamination cleanup. NEPA was designed to evaluate proposed federal actions. The NRC's licensing process was designed to evaluate specific facility applications for radiological safety. Each law has its own scope, its own procedures, its own triggers.


None of them was designed for a situation where a federal Superfund site, an adjacent private industrial development, a new federal data center solicitation, and multiple nuclear facilities all converge on the same community at the same time. There is no statute that requires a single agency to look at all of that together.


That gap is not illegal. It is not a violation of any law. It is simply the result of regulatory frameworks that were never designed for the specific combination of problems McCracken County is now facing.


But the absence of a legal requirement to look at the whole picture does not mean the whole picture doesn't matter. It means the whole picture will only be seen if someone demands it.


The cumulative impact question nobody is answering


Here is what a cumulative assessment would need to answer — and what no current federal process is required to address:


  • What is the combined water draw on the Ohio River from GLE's facility, General Matter's facility, the proposed data center cooling system, and the SMR cooling loop — and what does that combined draw mean for the five million people downstream who drink from that river?

  • What is the cumulative impact of construction activity from all four projects on the pump-and-treat systems that have been preventing Superfund contamination from reaching the Ohio River for nearly 30 years?

  • What is the cumulative air quality impact of all facilities operating simultaneously — including diesel backup generators, process emissions, and cooling tower discharge?

  • If a contamination event occurs on or near GLE's site, how will regulators distinguish between legacy Superfund contamination and new contamination from GLE's operations — given that the contamination signatures overlap?

  • What is the combined emergency planning requirement for simultaneous operation of two uranium enrichment facilities, a data center, and a small modular nuclear reactor in and adjacent to an active Superfund site — and does McCracken County's emergency management infrastructure have the capacity to meet it?


None of these questions has been asked by any federal agency. None of them has been answered. And none of them is required to be asked or answered by any existing regulatory process.


Why the Planning Commission may be the last body that can demand answers


Here is the uncomfortable truth about the regulatory gap: it will not be closed by the federal government. Not by the NRC, not by the EPA, not by the DOE. Each of those agencies is doing what its statutory mandate requires. None of them has the authority — or the obligation — to step outside that mandate and look at the whole picture.

State government could theoretically demand a cumulative assessment. But the Commonwealth of Kentucky has been an enthusiastic champion of these projects — Governor Beshear celebrated the GLE announcement, the state approved the incentive packages, and the Kentucky Fish and Wildlife Commission approved the land swap that made GLE's site possible. The state is not a neutral party.


That leaves local government.


The McCracken County Planning Commission controls conditional use permits, site plan approvals, and development plan applications for industrial development in McCracken County. GLE's facility cannot be built without those approvals. The proposed data center and SMR, when a company is named, will require them too.

Planning commissions across the country have begun using exactly this authority — the authority to condition development approvals on adequate environmental analysis — as the mechanism for demanding answers that federal processes have failed to provide.


In Pocatello, Idaho, a hearing examiner denied a conditional use permit for a $2.26 billion AI data center six days before McCracken County's May 27th Planning Commission meeting — citing the applicant's failure to conduct water, power, wastewater, and environmental impact analyses. She overruled her own planning staff's recommendation for approval. The grounds: the applicant could not demonstrate the project could be adequately served by public infrastructure and services.


The questions McCracken County needs answered are more complex than the ones Pocatello asked. The site is more complicated. The stakes are higher. The contamination is already there.


But the authority is the same. And so is the choice.


Source: Pocatello, Idaho hearing examiner decision (May 18, 2026); East Idaho News: https://www.eastidahonews.com; KRS Chapter 100 — Kentucky Planning and Zoning authority: https://legislature.ky.gov/Law/Statutes/Pages/Chapter100.aspx


What asking for a cumulative assessment would actually require


We want to be specific about what we're asking for, because "independent cumulative environmental assessment" can sound like bureaucratic abstraction. Here is what it means in practice.


A qualified, independent environmental consulting firm — with no financial relationship to GLE, General Matter, the DOE, or any data center applicant — would be retained to conduct a single, comprehensive study addressing:


  • Cumulative water impacts: combined draw and discharge from all facilities on the Ohio River watershed

  • Groundwater interaction: how construction and operations from all facilities affect the existing contamination plumes and the pump-and-treat systems containing them

  • Air quality: cumulative emissions from all facilities operating simultaneously

  • Emergency planning: combined requirements and McCracken County's capacity to meet them

  • Decommissioning: who bears the cost and liability when each facility reaches end of life

  • Economic impact: net tax benefit to McCracken County after all incentives, exemptions, and obligations are calculated — including the undisclosed NDA terms


That study would be made publicly available. A minimum 90-day public comment period would follow. And no conditional use permit, site plan, or development plan approval for any of these projects would be granted until the study is complete and the community has had a meaningful opportunity to respond.


The cost of that study would be borne by the applicants — not by McCracken County taxpayers. GLE, General Matter, and any data center company proposing to operate here are seeking to profit from this community. The minimum cost of entry should be funding the independent analysis of what their projects mean for the people who live here.


That is not an unreasonable demand. It is the most basic form of due diligence any responsible planning commission should require.


Sources — verify everything:


 
 
 
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