The Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter on July 27 filed an administrative appeal challenging the approval of the Townsite Data Center in Boulder City, NV. The 167-megawatt data center was approved by the Bureau of Land Management in June and is the first data center approved on public lands. The project would be constructed on 88.5 acres of public land in the vicinity of the existing Townsite Solar 1 project. “By cutting the public out of the process, they’re trying to hand over Nevada’s desert to billion-dollar tech companies without anyone getting a say,” said Olivia Tanager, executive director at the Sierra Club Toiyabe Chapter. “If this isn’t challenged, it won’t stop in Boulder City—it will become the blueprint for data centers across public lands in the West.”