What we know
The land, and the rules that govern it
From Hallam's zoning ordinance (Village Code Chapter 11), the Lancaster County Assessor,
and public reporting. The details matter, because this is where it gets fought.
The Phase 1 site
Monolith's Olive Creek campus on SW 42nd Street, about half a mile north of the
village. Roughly ten acres on the northeast portion, on ground already zoned for industry.
Who decides
Section 11-204: the Village Board controls zoning for all land inside the village
and within one mile of it. This is a village decision, not a county one.
What's being asked for now
Section 11-605(B)(33): the Board may grant a special use permit for "any similar use
that is determined by the Village Board of Trustees after referral to and recommendation by
the Planning Commission to be of a heavy industrial nature similar to the above listed
uses." This one attaches to a project, not a district — which is the
improvement.
The Phase 2 ground
The parcel east of the campus is zoned AG — Agriculture District,
classed as agricultural and unimproved and totalling roughly 135 acres, per
Lancaster County Assessor records. It was acquired by a Lincoln limited liability company in
August 2025. Monolith's written FAQ dated July 31, 2026 states the parcel is land
"that Monolith has under option." At the July 23 town hall its Chief
Development Officer described "a piece of land across the street" the company "did look at
… as an option, as a potential."
The permit as filed covers ten acres of one industrial parcel. Farm
ground is not in it — a data center on agricultural land would still need its own rezoning,
with notice to neighbors, a hearing, and a vote.
That is the good news, and we should say so
plainly. For weeks this page argued that the earlier version reached too far, because it would
have permitted a data center on a parcel merely "adjacent to" an industrial
use — language broad enough to worry about. That language is gone. It went out
with the amendment that contained it. Whatever else is unresolved, the ground east and west of
the village keeps every protection it had.
Public land records
The Phase 2 parcel is not the only ground under option
Options on land are recorded publicly. Anyone
can look them up, and we did. Between February 9 and April 13, 2026, thirteen
instruments were recorded with the Lancaster County Register of Deeds naming
Sagebrush Infrastructure Partners LLC as grantee — twelve
memoranda of option to purchase and one memorandum of agreement. Here are the
instrument numbers, so you don't have to take our word for any of it:
Recorded to Sagebrush Infrastructure Partners LLC
2026004422 · Feb 9 · Sec 30, Twp 7, Rng 6
2026004426 · Feb 9 · Sec 13, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026004526 · Feb 10 · Sec 25, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026004726 · Feb 11 · Sec 24, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026006176 · Feb 23 · Sec 13, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026007917 · Mar 9 · Sec 36, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026007918 · Mar 9 · Sec 35, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026007919 · Mar 9 · Sec 35, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026010034 · Mar 23 · Sec 25, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026010039 · Mar 23 · Sec 14, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026010040 · Mar 23 · Sec 23, Twp 7, Rng 5
2026010864 · Mar 27 · Sec 36, Twp 7, Rng 5 (memorandum of agreement)
2026013211 · Apr 13 · Sec 24, Twp 7, Rng 5
Search these free at the
Lancaster County Register of Deeds document search. We have deliberately not printed the
landowners' names — they are neighbors, and the instrument numbers are enough for anyone
who wants to check us.
One of them is worth its own sentence.
Instrument 2026004422 covers ground in Section 30, Township 7,
Range 6 — the same section as the ten acres now in front of the Board.
A memorandum of option is not a sale and not a
project. It is a company paying for the right to buy ground later, and it is the ordinary first
step in assembling a site. What it tells a village is that ground around us is being
tied up, in the same window in which a data center was being planned half a mile
north — and that the ten acres now in front of the Board are not the whole of what
is being contemplated near Hallam.
Ask the Board what it knows about land under option near the village,
and ask that the answer be given in the meeting, on the record.
This matters for a specific reason. Section
11-1302 requires an amendment application to disclose everyone holding a legal or
equitable interest in the property, down to five-percent shareholders. An option is an equitable
interest. Whatever the Board decides about ten acres, it is entitled to a complete picture of who
holds what around the village before it decides anything.
What this is and isn't
These are recorded public documents and we describe them as exactly that. We are not stating
what any of this ground is for, who Sagebrush Infrastructure Partners answers to, or that any
data center is planned on any of it — none of that appears in the records,
and we won't fill the gap with a guess. We are not claiming a connection to Monolith or to
Crusoe; we have no evidence of one and we don't assert one. What we have is thirteen
instruments, a four-month window, and a disclosure duty in §11-1302. If anything here is
wrong, tell us and we'll correct it the same day.
The argument this page made — and what happened to it
They didn't need the amendment. They took that route.
From the day this site went up it pointed at
§11-605(B)(33): Hallam's code already lets the Board consider one industrial project on
its own merits, without writing anything permanent into the ordinance. We asked why the
applicant wouldn't use it.
On July 27 they did. Credit where it's due — that argument worked.
So the fight moves to where it should have been
all along: the standard and the conditions. Section 11-1006 requires eight
affirmative findings before any special use permit issues — that it won't endanger public health
and welfare, won't injure the use and enjoyment of nearby property, has adequate utilities, and
five more. Those eight are listed and answered one by one in Monolith's own application, and
recited again in the draft resolution it submitted. Section 11-1007 then lets the Board attach
any reasonable condition it considers necessary.
Findings need evidence. The September 9 sound study now provides modeled evidence. Ask
what the Board is finding on.
In July this paragraph listed what the
applicant was not proposing to condition: no bond, no metered water cap, no operator named. On
September 4 all three were proposed, and we say so. What the thirty-six conditions still do not
resolve are the following timing questions: the bond comes within a year of opening, the sound
verification within six months after operations begin under Condition 14, and the benefit agreement whenever it is negotiated. The
setbacks drawn are also the code minimums. That is the gap a trustee can close, and only before the
vote.
Water
770,000 gallons a year is not a small number
The cooling method is settled: air-cooled or
closed-loop, in writing. That settles how the water is used. It does not settle how
much. The number the Board is being asked to approve is 770,000 gallons a year,
pumped from the ground at this site, for as long as the data center runs. Monolith compares it to
"16 hours of a pivot running" and "one or two restaurants." Those are their
comparisons. Here are ours, with the arithmetic shown.
WHAT 770,000 GALLONS IS
About 2,100 gallons a day. Every day.
770,000 divided by 365 is roughly 2,100 gallons a day, year in and year
out. The U.S. EPA's published figure for household use is "more than 300 gallons of
water per day" for the average American family — about 110,000 gallons a year.
On that figure, the data center's operating use alone is about seven households'
worth of water, added permanently, and the one-time fill Crusoe described at the
town hall — roughly 500,000 gallons — is another four or five households' worth
before the first server turns on. [If Hallam's 268 residents use a typical Nebraska 90
gallons per person per day, the whole village uses about 9 million gallons a year at home
— which would make this project's operating draw close to 9 percent of the entire
village's. That is an estimate; the Clerk has the actual pumped volume.]
A restaurant is on city water and a city sewer. This water comes out of the aquifer
under the neighbors' wells, at a site that already holds permits for
about 420 million gallons a year — approved in 2021 after nearly a
year of testing, an independent review and two public meetings. This draw gets none of that
review, because no new permit is sought.
THE FILED FIGURE · SINCE SEPT. 4
What the application now commits to
Until September 4, no water figure appeared anywhere in the application. Now
Condition 22 does: "average operational water use shall not exceed
770,000 gallons per year, calculated on a rolling five-year basis." That is what this
page asked for, and it is in writing. Read the rest of the sentence: excluded from the
average are construction water, "the initial fill of liquid-cooled units,"
withdrawals "reasonably necessary to address water quality conditions," and
"other emergency events." A five-year average means a single year can run well
over 770,000 without a violation. The fill is excluded, and it is still a spoken number.
At the town hall Crusoe said the loop is drained and refilled for maintenance or leaks; a
refill "to address water quality conditions" would fall outside the cap too. And
nothing in the condition speaks to Phase 2.
Closed-loop answers how the water is used. It does not answer how much.
Seven households' worth, forever, from the ground, with the fill and the refills outside the
cap — that is the number the Board is approving.
New in the July 27 filing
"Will not seek any new water rights"
The amended application states the project will
operate "within Monolith's existing permitted water allocations and will not seek any new
water rights." Taken at face value, that is a meaningful commitment and we'll treat it as
one.
It also has a consequence almost nobody has
noticed. The application does not say which allocations it means.
The permits on record at this site are the three wells approved in 2021, estimated at
about 420 million gallons a year. [We have asked the District to confirm whether those
are the allocations in question.] If no new permit is sought, then there is no new
application to the Natural Resources District — and the independent review, the
public open house and the written-comment period that came with the 2021 permits would have no
occasion to happen again.
If no new water permit is sought, there may be no NRD review at all
— which would leave the Village Board's vote as the only public decision anyone gets to make
about water here. We have asked LPSNRD to confirm. [Not yet answered.]
There is one open question worth a phone call.
The 2021 permits were granted for a carbon black plant, after nearly a year of study, with the
District reserving authority to add requirements if the operation diverged from the
application. Running a 35-megawatt data center on that same allocation is a different
use than the one reviewed. Whether the District considers that a divergence is a
question only the District can answer — and somebody should ask it before the Board votes.
[Not yet answered. LPSNRD, (402) 476-2729.]
Where these numbers come from
The 35 megawatt figure and the water-rights language are stated in Monolith's amended
application of July 27, 2026; the 770,000-gallon cap and the cooling conditions are in its
September 4, 2026 update. The 420 million gallon figure is from the Natural Resources
District's 2021 permit approval. The 500,000-gallon initial fill is what Crusoe stated at the
July 23 town hall —
read the transcript — and appears in no filing.
The household comparison uses the U.S. EPA WaterSense figure of "more than 300 gallons
per day" for the average American family; the village-wide figure is our own estimate at 90
gallons per person per day and is marked as such. We would rather rely on a number written
into a permit than one spoken into a microphone — which is why September 4 matters, and why
the size of that number matters now.
The commitment that became one
"Where practicable" — struck, on cooling
The July application committed to water-efficient
practices "including a closed-loop water cooling system or air-cooled
system, and water-saving fixtures within the facility where practicable."
This page said: strike "where practicable," name the cooling system, writing it down costs
nothing. On September 4 they did. Condition 23 requires "air cooled systems
or closed loop water cooling systems," with no qualifier, and Condition 24 reads, in full:
"The Project shall not use evaporative cooling practices to cool its data center
operations." That is a commitment, and we treat it as one.
What still deserves a definition is "closed
loop." At the July 23 town hall Crusoe's representative said the system is drained and refilled
for maintenance or leaks, with the water trucked to treatment — and the September 4
resolution still says the state "will regulate any wastewater discharges." A closed loop
that is periodically emptied has a number attached to it, and that number is not in the file.
Water-saving fixtures, meanwhile, are now required "where commercially reasonable"
(Condition 25) — the old qualifier, new wording.
The cooling method is named. Now ask how much water leaves the loop, how
often, and who is told.
The water ask
Give us the same process Monolith got
Before those 2021 wells were approved, the
Natural Resources District commissioned an independent review of the groundwater modeling,
held a public open house in Hallam, held a separate public input session, and took written
comment. It then attached conditions: flowmeters on every well, quarterly reporting,
groundwater monitoring before and after startup, and authority to add requirements if the
operation diverged from the application.
That was good enough for their own wells five years ago. It should be
good enough now.
- Disclose before deciding: peak megawatts (filed: 35 MW),
cooling method (filed: air-cooled or closed-loop),
projected annual water use (filed: 770,000 gal/yr),
and maximum daily withdrawal and the initial fill —
still not filed.
- Meter reports to the Village, not only to the District. Condition 21
makes water use subject to the NRD's "existing permit conditions for industrial wells"
— the 2021 flowmeters and quarterly reports. Those reports go to the District. Require
a copy to the Village Clerk, so the 770,000 cap is checked by the body that imposed it.
- Baseline monitoring of neighboring wells before operations begin.
- An independent review and a public input session — the 2021 standard.
One thing to understand about the Natural Resources District
It is not a veto. Under its own rules, if the district finds no detrimental effect on the
aquifer or on nearby wells, the permit "shall be granted." Showing up angry does not stop a
well permit — evidence does. That's why neighbors with their own wells matter more here than
anyone else, and why an independent hydrologist is worth more than a full room.
Noise
The limit on paper isn't the limit you'll live with
Hallam's code does set a noise limit. Section
11-603(E) caps industrial noise at 55 Leq where the receiving property is
residential, measured at the property line nearest the source. For scale, 55 is about steady
rain, or a conversation ten feet away. A vacuum cleaner is around 70 — and because decibels
aren't a straight scale, that's roughly three times as loud, not a little louder. (55 Leq is the
ordinance's number, not ours; the everyday comparisons are standard published reference levels.)
PROBLEM ONE
The model predicts compliance; operations remain to be verified
The September 9 report predicts levels below the evaluated residential and industrial
criteria. The full study and results are now available.
The model uses preliminary equipment and layout assumptions. It is not an operating test,
and the separate Condition 14 verification timetable remains relevant.
PROBLEM TWO
Enforcement is a bill the village pays
A limit only means something if somebody measures it. Who drives out at 2 a.m. with a
sound meter? Who buys the meter, hires the consultant, pays the attorney when a violation
is disputed? Those costs land on a village whose general fund is roughly $344,000, per the
Village's own budget figures.
A promise you have to sue someone to collect isn't a protection. It's a hope.
So what should we ask for instead?
Conditions that don't depend on the village policing them later. Two of them are now partly
in the file: Condition 14 calls for a study within six months after commencing operation, paid for by the operator,
and Condition 30 requires removal money. What is missing from each is the part that enforces
itself — a required fix if the test fails, and the money posted
before operations begin rather than within a year after. Add a setback greater than
the 15-foot side-yard minimum drawn on the plan, written into the permit. Distance and bonds
enforce themselves.
Other levers in the same chapter
What the board can require, if it won't deny
- §11-1006: eight standards the Board must find are satisfied before any
special use permit issues — public health and welfare, effect on neighboring property,
orderly development, appearance, adequate utilities, ingress and egress, the comprehensive
plan, and conformance with district regulations. These are findings, not
preferences. A finding needs something in the record to rest on.
- §11-1007: the Board "may impose reasonable conditions on the
establishment, location, construction, maintenance and operation" of the use. This is the
broadest authority the Board has, and the applicant has already invited its use by proposing
thirty-six conditions of its own.
- §11-602(D): a site plan must be filed for every industrial use, and
"the Village Board of Trustees may require additional standards as are necessary… for the
maximum protection of the environment and the health and safety of the citizens of the
village."
- §11-603(G): a Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department air permit is
required before a building permit issues.
- §11-110(E)(2): an industrial yard adjacent to residential use must be
increased to 75 feet with screening — a floor, not a ceiling. Section 11-1007
lets the Board require a greater distance, and a distance written into the permit is the one
condition that enforces itself.
One question we've asked a lawyer
A zoning amendment carries protections a special use permit may not: the formal protest
right that raises the threshold to four votes out of five, the one-year bar on refiling
something that was denied, and §11-1304's rule that "the burden of proof for any zoning change
shall be upon the applicant." Those live in Article 13, which governs amendments. This is now
an Article 10 application. Whether any of them still apply is a real legal question
and we are not going to guess at it in public. [Referred to counsel. We'll post the
answer when we have it.]