A 3.3-gigawatt data center corridor, pitched to Enid as backup power for an Air Force base.
The developer says it costs taxpayers $0. The water it would run on was paid for by Enid.

Four campuses, one private gas plant, and a utility that does not exist yet.

Plainsmen Holdings announced Project Thunderbird on Sept. 8, 2026. All of the figures below are the developer’s own; none has been through a permit review. Generating capacity and computing load are different measures and are not added together.

The corridor would be tied together by a Patriot Utility District: a municipally owned utility, as the developer describes it, that would own a 345 kV power ring, water lines and dark fiber, funded by concession fees from the data center operator. It would also run hardened power and fiber to Vance Air Force Base. The City of Enid says the district’s design, ownership, funding and approvals are not final. No document creating it has been filed. See the tracker page for every dated update.

Four Enid High graduates, one LLC.

Plainsmen Holdings, LLC is named for the Enid High School mascot. The company says its members grew up in Enid and that it does not answer to an outside fund. Its Oklahoma Secretary of State filing has not yet been pulled, and it has not said which companies hold title to the three campus sites it calls “in hand.”

Around them: the Enid Regional Development Alliance (ERDA), the city’s economic development nonprofit, which the developer names as its partner in choosing an operator, shaping the utility district and running its home-value program. ERDA is paid in part under a city service contract; its director, Marcie Mack, endorsed the project in the announcement. Public relations is handled by Schnake Turnbo Frank.

No contracts. The developer said so on Sept. 15.

At the Sept. 15 city commission meeting, Plainsmen said no contracts had been signed for the data center or the power plant (Enid News & Eagle). Here is every agreement the plan needs and where each stood on Oct. 24, 2026.

The city’s land-use notice names the owners of only part of the land: the City of Enid industrial park (about 399 and about 80 acres) and Transportation Partners & Logistics LLC (about 239 acres in Sections 6 and 7, T22N R5W). It does not name the owners of the North campus (Section 23, T23N R6W) or the West campus (Section 16, T22N R6W). Garfield County deeds have not yet been pulled.

The water source was built with a 35-year sales tax and the largest loan in the state water board’s history.

Enid’s Kaw Lake Water Supply Program brings raw water about 70 miles from Kaw Lake, east of Ponca City, to a new treatment plant. The city marked its completion on Aug. 21, 2026. The plant is rated at 10.5 million gallons a day, and the Enid News & Eagle reports the pipeline is built for 20. Project Thunderbird would be its “first anchor customer” and would “help repay” the city’s debt, the developer says. No price or volume has been agreed.

How it was paid for

What it cost: the figure has never been settled in public

The pipeline was justified by long-range demand: the city’s 2018 plan projected average use of 12.6 million gallons a day by 2047, against about 5 million then. In 2021 condemnation hearings, Osage County landowners’ lawyers argued the line was driven by Koch’s fertilizer plant, the largest commercial water user; the city denied any private funding talks. A data center drawing 2 million gallons a day would be a large new customer for that capacity. What it would pay, and whether that would cover its share of the debt, depends on a water contract that does not yet exist.

The Air Force has not said anything in public.

The developer’s case leans on Vance Air Force Base, Enid’s largest employer (2,571 personnel and $739 million in economic impact in FY2022, per the base). It says the corridor would give Vance hardened backup power and fiber, help it meet a 2030 federal standard, open a path to Defense Department cloud work, and give the project “political durability” against future moratoriums or taxes.

No Air Force or Defense Department statement on Project Thunderbird, no Energy Resilience and Conservation Investment Program project at Vance, and no Defense Community Infrastructure Program grant for it were found. Every “national security” statement in the coverage comes from the developer, the city, ERDA or the Vance Development Authority. Whether federal money would ever flow through the Vance connection, in either direction, is not addressed in any record.

No incentive has been sought. The state does not track what its data center tax break costs.

No application by Plainsmen for any state or local incentive was found, and its website does not say whether it would seek or waive them. These are the rules that would apply to an operator.

• Sales tax. Oklahoma exempts data center equipment purchases by qualifying companies (68 O.S. § 1357; electricity is not covered, per the Commerce Department). A draft state evaluation dated Sept. 30, 2026 found the Tax Commission does not track the dollar value of the exempt purchases, so the cost “cannot be precisely determined,” and recommended keeping it with changes, including possible conditions on water use and on-site generation.
• Property tax. Since SB 609 (2021), new data centers do not qualify for the five-year manufacturing property tax exemption, which the state repays to school districts; Google’s Mayes County campus was grandfathered. Whether the power plant could qualify under another category is not settled in any record. Voters rejected State Question 844, which would have let lawmakers limit those reimbursements, on Aug. 25, 2026.
• Payroll rebates. The Quality Jobs program can rebate up to 5 percent of new payroll for up to 10 years, per the Commerce Department’s data center summary.
• Ratepayers. The developer cites an Oklahoma ratepayer-protection law without naming it. The match is HB 2992, the Data Center Consumer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026, signed May 11 and in force July 1, 2026: large data center loads get separate utility terms so other customers do not pay for their grid costs, and buyers of land for a data center must notify the Corporation Commission, county commissioners and neighbors within 60 days. Whether Plainsmen filed that notice was not found.
• Bills not enacted. HB 4424 would have limited the sales tax exemption to data centers operating before 2027; SB 1848 would have barred local tax-increment (TIF) incentives for data centers; SB 1488 proposed a three-year moratorium. None was enacted as far as we found.

The developer projects “tens of millions a year” for schools and local services at full build and “hundreds of millions” over 25 years. Those are its own projections; it has not published the calculation, and the city has published none.

The rezoning vote is Oct. 27. It is the first of several.

• Aug. 18, 2026 The city commission adopts Ordinance No. 2026-17: data centers (over 10 kW of IT load) need an Intensive Use Review, commission approval and an Intensive Use Agreement, with 65 dBA day / 55 dBA night noise limits, a 500-foot setback and decommissioning bonds. The project was announced three weeks later; the timing is a fact, not evidence of coordination.
• Sept. 8, 2026 Plainsmen announces Project Thunderbird; the city says it is neutral and that rezoning does not authorize a data center.
• Sept. 15, 2026 Opponents outnumber supporters at the commission meeting; several residents ask for a moratorium. Plainsmen says no contracts have been signed.
• Sept. 28, 2026 The Metropolitan Area Planning Commission recommends the rezonings: 7-1 for the North campus and 6-2 for each West campus item (Enid News & Eagle). The land use plan amendment passed 5-3 but was announced as having failed, the city later said.
• Oct. 5, 2026 The city pulls the rezonings from its Oct. 6 agenda and sets a special meeting for more public attendance.
• Oct. 19–20, 2026 Re-noticed hearings on the land use plan amendment (planning commission, then possible city commission action). Outcome not found as of Oct. 24.
• Oct. 27, 2026 Special city commission meeting, 5 p.m., Grand Ballroom, Stride Bank Center: public hearing and vote on the rezonings. Mayor David Mason and commissioners Cheryl Patterson, Derwin Norwood Jr., Frank Baker, Whitney Roberts, Rob Stallings and Courtney Dennis.

Opposition is organized. No Data Centers in Enid argues the developers will sell the project to a large technology company and has raised a possible ballot initiative for a ban or moratorium; a separate online petition showed about 2,571 signatures on Oct. 24. Supporters have spoken too, including an adjacent landowner interviewed by KOKH.

What these records do not show.