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Bedington Owner LLC, a company connected to the Washington, DC developer Penzance, is asking the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP)for permission to begin the first phase of a planned 637-acre data center campus in Bedington, designed for more than 600 megawatts. This first phase is rough grading: clearing and reshaping 430.93 acres of farmland and pasture, moving about one million cubic yards of earth, and digging a borrow pit on a separate parcel north of Hoke Run. Work is scheduled from November 2026 through April 2029. The permit covers how muddy and polluted runoff will be controlled during construction.

Grading on this scale carries risks to nearby water. Heavy storms can overwhelm sediment controls and send soil into Hoke Run and Opequon Creek, which flow to the Potomac. The site sits in a region of karst and limestone that can hide underground voids and where excavation and ponded water can open sinkholes that carry runoff directly into groundwater. Nearby homes rely on private wells, and mapped springs sit along Hoke Run.

It is important to note that the permiting process does not contemplate data centers energy demand, water withdrawal, noise, traffice, or ther impacts. The permit scope narrowly evaluates self-reported information and weighs it against established parameters. Each permit is considered only by the respective DEP division or federal agency independent of any other project component. In otherwords, as the WVDEP has acknowledged in pubic hearings for data center and microgrid projects around the state, permits are issued based on "technical demonstrations of compliance". 4

In Mason County, WV, for example, the stormwater construciton permit was approved after a WVDEP site inspection determined that the stormwater controls were in compliance with the approved plan. However, after a heavy rainstorm, runoff from the project site flooded an adjacent neighborhood and WVDEP issued 4 permit violations in next 18 days. After the site flooded again, a unilateral enforcement order was issued and development was partially halted until adequate stormwater controls were implemented.

Just as the site for the Bedington Project partially lies in the 100-year flood plane of the Opequon Creek, the the site of the Monarch Compute Campus partially lies in the 100-year flood plane of the Ohio River.

For WV/NPDES permits, any interested person may submit written comments and may request a public hearing by writing to the Director of the Division of Water and Waste Management within 30 days of the public notice date. Comments received inside that window are considered before the agency acts on the application.

Your correspondence must include your name, address, and telephone number, along with a concise statement of the nature of the issues you are raising. Comments go to the email address printed in the public notice, or by mail to:

Director, Division of Water and Waste Management
West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection
ATTN: [permitting staff named in the notice], Permitting Section
601 57th Street SE
Charleston, WV 25304-2345

Stay inside what the permit controls. A storm water construction permit governs erosion, sediment, and what leaves the site during land disturbance. It does not govern water withdrawal, electricity, land use, or whether the facility should exist. An agency can only act on its own authority, so a comment about the wrong subject gets acknowledged and dismissed.

Then write it like this:

• Be specific and be first-hand. "The field floods to the fence line after heavy rain; I have photographs from [date]".
• Cite the permit. Name the section or condition you are addressing. It forces a specific response.
• Attach evidence. Photographs with dates. Well logs. Your own records.
• Ask a question the agency has to answer.
• Write it in your own words. Identical form letters are counted as one comment.
• Send it early. Do not risk the deadline on a mail delay.

• Karst. Rapid infiltration through fissures and conduits means sediment and runoff can reach groundwater without filtering. Sinkhole formation on a disturbed site. Whether the plan accounts for any of it.
• The receiving stream. Opequon Creek and the Potomac basin downstream. Existing impairments. What the discharge adds.
• Scale of disturbance. Acreage, duration, phasing, and whether the controls proposed are sized for it.
• Site-specific conditions the applicant may not have described. Springs, seeps, wet weather channels, known sinkholes, flooding you have witnessed. First-hand observation of your own land is evidence an agency reviewer does not otherwise have.
• Neighboring wells and springs that draw from the same system.

Questions worth asking (based on application as it stand nows NOT final draft)

• Will the Groundwater Protection Plan and Karst Mitigation Plan be updated to cover the full 430.93 acres, including the land added north of Hoke Run?
• Does the expanded grading area now include the contaminated soils, historic areas, or karst areas that the July plans avoided?
• Have the Phase 1 Environmental Site Assessment, cultural resource study, Geotechnical Report, and Pyritic Shale Management Plan been submitted to WVDEP, and will they be available for public review?
• Which sinkhole buffer applies, 50 feet or 100 feet?
• How many discharge points are there, and what are the pre- and post-development discharge rates at each one?
• Where will borrow and waste sites be located, and will they require separate review?
• Will a blasting plan be reviewed by WVDEP before blasting begins?
• What role will the Berkeley County stormwater district have during construction?

How to know when a comment period opens

• WVDEP posts public notices on its website. [Link the specific notices page.]
• Notices are also published as legal advertisements in a designated local newspaper. [Name the paper of record for Berkeley County.]
• [Set up a notification list and link the signup here. A 30-day window that opens without anyone noticing is a window that closes.]