Lyon County's Monarch Data Center Plan on Farmland Pits Rural Residents Against County Revenue Needs

What happened

Lyon County commissioners earlier this year advanced a request to move forward with the Monarch Data Center on 500 acres of farmland just outside Yerington, the county seat, The Nevada Independent reported. Copia Power is the company seeking to develop the land in Mason Valley, according to the outlet. The decision raised a new question in Nevada's data center debate: whether they belong on land long used for farming.

When commissioners voted to move forward with permitting, roughly 200 residents attended, mostly to voice disapproval, the outlet reported. "We don't want a data center here," resident David Janakos told commissioners in August, according to The Nevada Independent.

Why the county is interested

A revenue gap

Lyon County ranks last in Nevada for revenue per capita, according to The Nevada Independent. Data collected by the county's comptroller show industry-heavy Storey County and mining-heavy Eureka County generate roughly 20 times the revenue per resident that Lyon does, while Nye County and Carson City generate two to two-and-a-half times as much.

Nevada limits how much property tax can grow each year, and county revenue from farmland generally comes from property taxes, the outlet reported. Industry pays property taxes along with sales and use taxes and business license fees. "If you look at the tax revenue an industrial property brings in, it's significant," County Manager Andrew Haskin told the outlet.

Growth and location

Lyon County has become the third-largest county in the state by population, and new residents need services such as road maintenance and law enforcement. "Growth does not pay for itself," said Fred Steinmann, director of UNR's Center for Economic Development. He told the outlet the county's access to Interstate 80, Highway 50 and Highway 95, plus its location near the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, makes it attractive to industry.

The county is on tap to have eight data centers built within its borders over the next several years, The Nevada Independent reported. Tract, a developer of data center campuses, acquired more than 1,000 acres in Lyon County last year. Readers can follow similar projects in our development coverage.

An emerging energy hub

About 2 miles from the Monarch site, NV Energy is building the Walker River Substation as part of its Greenlink high-voltage transmission line, which will span the state. The outlet reported the substation is poised to be one of the largest in the world. Nearby plans include utility-scale solar projects such as Winston Energy, a 400-megawatt solar and 400-megawatt battery storage project.

Landowner Brian Masini wrote in a December email to Commissioner David Hockaday that he had received inquiries from solar for years, but that AI and developers began to show interest after the substation and Greenlink projects were announced. He wrote that "the old way of farming is just not economically feasible in Mason Valley."

Concerns over water, power and farmland

Resource use

Many residents' concerns centered on water and power. NV Energy has acknowledged it does not have enough power lined up to support the data centers coming to Nevada, the outlet reported. A 2024 UC Berkeley report drafted for Congress estimated data centers used 17.43 billion gallons of water in 2023 and cautioned the figure is likely to double by 2028.

Data center supporters note that is far less than agriculture. American agricultural producers consumed 81 million acre-feet of water in 2023, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. More on how Nevada manages its supply is in our water coverage.

Farmland and outside money

Doug Busselman, government affairs director at the Nevada Farm Bureau, called Lyon County's move an outlier for now but said farmland and ranchland remain vulnerable to large development. Patrick Donnelly of the Center for Biological Diversity said developers are targeting "small rural communities that are heavily influenced by relatively modest amounts of money."

The trend is national. Research compiled by the Pew Research Center shows more than two-thirds of roughly 1,500 data centers planned nationwide are slated for rural areas, and nearly 40 percent are in counties that currently have none.

What to watch next

• Permitting for the Monarch Data Center, which Lyon County commissioners voted to move forward.
• The eight data centers Lyon County is on tap to have built over the next several years.
• Construction of NV Energy's Walker River Substation and the Greenlink transmission line through Lyon County.
• How NV Energy addresses its acknowledged shortage of power for data centers coming to Nevada.