Project dossier · Tonganoxie (Leavenworth County), Kansas

Project Bluestem In review

Cloverleaf Infrastructure proposes Project Bluestem, a 600 MW hyperscale data center on approximately 1,000 acres of former Tailgate Ranch land south of Tonganoxie. The Leavenworth County Commission passed a 90-day moratorium on data center applications in May 2026, which expired in August. On August 5, commissioners voted 3-2 against extending the moratorium. On August 13, officials reversed course and directed planning and zoning to delay regulation recommendations until after a joint work session before the September meeting. No formal application has been submitted.

Key facts

Operator: Cloverleaf Infrastructure
Owner: Cloverleaf Infrastructure
Size: 600 MW
Acres: 1,000
Location: Tonganoxie (Leavenworth County), Kansas
First proposed: 2026-02-01
Stage today: In review

Source
read 2026-08-14

What to do next

Next step: An application is in the record. Ask the planning office for the next hearing date and request formal notice.

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What has happened so far (9 events)

2026-03-18hearing
Leavenworth County residents pack public forum on proposed data center. · source
2026-03-26announcement
Coverage identified Cloverleaf Infrastructure as the developer of Project Bluestem, a conceptual 1,000-acre data center near Tonganoxie that could require up to 1.2 gigawatts of power and would receive a 100% sales and use tax abatement for 20 years, with no formal applications yet submitted. · source
2026-04-26protest
The opposition group Citizens Against Bluestem held its inaugural meeting at the Tonganoxie VFW Post Home, drawing roughly 150 attendees; speakers included County Commissioner Mike Stieben and a Sierra Club representative. · source
2026-05-01vote
Leavenworth County Commission passes 90-day moratorium on data center applications. · source
2026-05-19protest
The Tongie Data Center Watch Dog Group planned to present a petition to the Tonganoxie City Council at 7 p.m. on Monday, May 19, seeking an 18-month moratorium on data center development. · source
2026-06-09meeting
Project Bluestem representatives held an open house at 304 Venue in Tonganoxie to address resident concerns about the proposed data center. · source
2026-08-05vote
Commission votes 3-2 against extending moratorium; moratorium expires. · source
2026-08-13vote
Officials reverse course, direct P&Z to delay recommendations until joint work session in September. · source
2026-08-14hearing
About 100 protesters organized by the Tongie Data Center WatchDog Group packed the Leavenworth County planning meeting, where the planning commission voted 8-1 to revisit data center regulations. · source

Find the paper trail

Find the paper trail (0 filed · 11 places to look)

State environmental permits

Backup generators, water withdrawal and stormwater are permitted by the state, usually earlier and in more detail than anything filed locally.

Kansas KDHE — Bureau of AirThe program page: which permits this state requires, and the office that issues them.
Search Kansas KDHE — Bureau of Air for this projectsearchThis state publishes no searchable permit database, so a written records request to the agency is the reliable route. Use this search only to find the right office.

County & town filings

The rezoning application, site plan, traffic and noise studies, staff report and every revision.

Search Tonganoxie (Leavenworth County) planning filingssearchPlanning departments post application files under many different names. Find the department, then ask the clerk for the application number — that number unlocks everything else.
Search Tonganoxie (Leavenworth County) property records / GISsearchThe parcel record names the buying LLC and the sale date, which is what ties an anonymous filing to an operator.

Utility & grid records

The electricity request is filed with the grid operator and the utility long before the town hears about it — and states the real load.

Southwest Power Pool (Plains) — interconnection queueRequested megawatts, queue position and target in-service date. The MW here is the real number; the one at the town meeting is often phase one.
Kansas Corporation Commission — docket searchSpecial contracts, large-load tariffs and rate cases are docketed here. Testimony and exhibits are public, and are usually more candid than the press release.
FERC eLibraryFederal filings: transmission agreements, interconnection service agreements, and co-location disputes.
Search the serving utility for a will-serve lettersearchThe will-serve or load-service letter is the utility's own written commitment. Ask the utility and the PUC for it by name — it is frequently the first document to exist.

Federal databases

Works anywhere, and covers the operator's record at its other sites.

EPA ECHO facility searchEvery federally-reported air, water and waste permit at a facility, plus its inspection and violation history. Search by address or draw a radius around the site. This project's locality centres on 39.100, -95.090 — search that point with a 5-mile radius.
EPA EnvirofactsThe same underlying records, queryable by county — useful for 'what else is permitted near this site' rather than one facility.
EPA Facility Registry ServiceResolves the shell LLC on a permit to the facility it belongs to. Worth a look when the filing name means nothing locally.

These are places to look, not evidence that anything has been filed. Links were checked on 2026-08-21; search links are queries, not records. What to ask for.

Around here

Leavenworth County community briefing — Expiredterm ran to 2026-08-11
Kansas briefing — rates, grid carbon, PUC contacts.

Other tracked projects in Kansas

Astra data center campus (Digital Realty) — De Soto (Johnson County), 10 mi In review
Compass Wakarusa Campus — Shawnee County (Wakarusa area, near Topeka) In review

Cite this page: GridWatch AI, “Project Bluestem”, aigridwatch.com/projects/tonganoxie-project-bluestem, retrieved 2026-10-11.

As of August 2026 (2m ago) · changes weekly — re-check before citing

A working set of identified proposals a community can track, not a census — most of the country's activity is not in here yet. Pennsylvania is the exception: its rows are synced from PA DEP's own data-center permit tracker, so the state's coverage is close to complete and carries the permit trail with it. **Each row carries its own provenance.** Rows showing a verification date link to reporting or the governing body's own record and were read on that date; rows marked *unverified* have no source on record — a lead to check, not a fact to cite. **Stage is derived, not asserted.** *Hearing scheduled*, *Awaiting decision*, *Approved* and *Withdrawn* are computed from each row's milestone dates on every rebuild, so a hearing date that has passed stops reading 'scheduled'. Hearings get moved and projects re-file under new names — treat a scheduled date as the earliest to act by, and confirm with the clerk before relying on it. Leads are mined into data/project_candidates.json and promoted here only after a human reads a primary source.

Part of the data center project tracker — open data, CC BY 4.0 (JSON · CSV).