Who Actually Wrote the County's "Factual Information"?

Judge Craig Clymer recently told the community he posted the project details on the McCracken County website "to give factual information." We took him at his word and read every page. Then we asked a simple question that changes how you should read all of it. Who actually wrote those "facts"?

The answer is right there on the page. Every word of it comes from something called the "Paducah American Energy Hub."

So who is that?

There is no "Energy Hub"

The Paducah American Energy Hub is not a public agency. It is not a government authority. It is not even a neutral third party. There is no independent "Energy Hub" organization at all. The name is a marketing brand for the private companies that stand to make money from this project.

Behind that friendly name sits the consortium: Brookfield, the private equity developer that would build and operate the data center, and NextEra Energy, the company that would build and own the power plants. Alongside them are Big Rivers Electric, Jackson Purchase Energy Cooperative, and Paducah Power System.

These are the businesses selling the project. And they are the ones who wrote the "facts" about it.

Advertising wearing a government badge

Here is why this matters so much. That promotional copy was not posted on a company website where everyone would understand it as a sales pitch. It was posted on our county government's website. Then it was handed to residents as "factual information" from their elected leaders.

It is not that. It is advertising.

When the people who profit from a project also get to write the official "facts" about it, every line deserves a second look. Not because residents are cynical. Because that is basic common sense. You would not let a car dealer write the safety inspection. You would not let a company grade its own test. Yet that is exactly what happened here, on a government site, in our name.

One community member said it plainly in the comments. This appears to be information provided directly by the private equity group, not our county leaders. She was right. And now everyone can see it.

What a sales pitch leaves out

Read the material like the advertisement it is, and the gaps jump out. Across six pages, the words Superfund, contamination, and cleanup never appear, even though this is an active federal Superfund site with cleanup expected to run for decades. There is a full section on how loud the gas plant will be and not one line on what it will put into the air. The page answers "will this raise electric rates" with a single word, "No," while its own timeline shows the data center running years before its power plant is built.

Those are not the choices of a document meant to inform you. They are the choices of a document meant to reassure you.

We are not asking anyone to assume the worst. We are asking the county to stop handing us the developers' brochure and calling it fact.

The one thing that would settle it

There is a clean, fair way to answer every open question. One independent, cumulative environmental impact study. Not a fact sheet written by Brookfield and NextEra. Not a recycled federal template. A real, honest look at everything together. The data center, the gas plant, the batteries, and the uranium enrichment facilities, all stacked on top of an unfinished Superfund cleanup, studied as a whole, before one more permit is issued or one more public dollar is spent.

If this project is as safe and as good for us as the developers say, an independent study only proves them right. So there is no reason to fear it, and every reason to demand it.

Protect McCracken County is calling on our county leaders to support and require an independent, cumulative environmental impact study before this moves any further. That is the ask. It is reasonable, it is responsible, and it protects every person who lives here.

Help us make this impossible to ignore

If this concerns you, do three quick things. Share this post so your neighbors see it. Add a comment with your own questions, because officials count who is paying attention. And sign our petition calling for the independent study at protectmccrackencounty.com.

The developers wrote their version. It is our turn to write ours. The more of us who stand up, the harder we are to wave off.

Your neighbors at Protect McCracken County