Company behind 600-acre Bowie County purchase has applied to build a gas-fired power plant
TEXARKANA, Texas — The Fort Worth energy company that quietly assembled nearly 600 acres in western Bowie County has asked the state for permission to build a natural gas-fired power plant on the land, public records show. The filing puts a clearer shape to a project that has already drawn yard-sign opposition in the Red Lick and Leary area.
An affiliate of Black Mountain, the Fort Worth-based oil, gas and power company that bought the tract in March, filed an air-quality application with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in February for a facility it calls the “Bowie County Power Plant,” according to records reviewed by TXKtoday.
The applicant on the filing is Fort Worth Power Core LLC, which lists the same Fort Worth mailing address, the same chief executive (Rhett Bennett) and the same TCEQ customer number as Black Mountain Power LLC, the entity recorded on the Bowie County deed. The shared ownership has been independently documented by the Fort Worth Report and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in their coverage of Black Mountain’s projects across the state.
TXKtoday reported last week that Black Mountain Power purchased the roughly 600-acre tract on March 24 from Barkman Creek Land Company, LP, a Texarkana-based partnership, in the Mary Morris, John Barkman and Collin McKinney surveys near Red Lick. The deeds did not state what the company intended to build, and Black Mountain had not announced a project.
The TCEQ filing now points to a power plant. The application describes the site as reachable from Hooks by heading east on U.S. 82 and turning onto Barkman Creek Road, the same Barkman name attached to the company the land was bought from and to one of the original land surveys in the deed.
A 446-megawatt plant
The proposed facility would be a gas-fired plant capable of generating about 446 megawatts of electricity, according to Oil & Gas Watch, a database run by the Environmental Integrity Project that tracks new fossil-fuel construction.
The same analysis estimates the plant would release roughly 324 tons of criteria air pollutants and 16,200 pounds of hazardous air pollutants each year. Those figures match what the group calculated for a nearly identical Fort Worth Power Core plant proposed in Bell County, near Temple. TCEQ records list the Bowie facility under state ID RN112380654.
The company filed the application under the state’s standard permit for electric generating units, signing it Feb. 10 and submitting it Feb. 13, weeks before the land deed was recorded on March 24.
Power plant, data center, or both
The records reviewed by TXKtoday do not say who would buy the electricity from a Bowie County plant. Fort Worth Power Core’s permits elsewhere in Texas cut both ways: some describe the turbines as backup or “bridge” power for a new data center, while others say the turbines would generate power for sale to the broader grid.
Black Mountain is one of the more active data-center developers in Texas. The company is behind a planned $10 billion data center campus in southeast Fort Worth, where the city council has repeatedly delayed a vote amid resident concerns over water and electricity use. State records show the company has assembled more than 2,000 acres in Parker County near Weatherford, where Fort Worth Power Core won TCEQ approval in April 2025 to run five natural gas turbines. The company holds additional air permits in Tarrant, Jack, Somervell and Bell counties.
Black Mountain has also been politically active. Texas Ethics Commission records show Black Mountain Power LLC donated $500,000 to Gov. Greg Abbott in November.
Local pushback
In western Bowie County, opposition has begun to organize. A sign posted along Farm-to-Market Road 1398 reads “HELP US STOP THIS DATA CENTER COMING TO REDLICK/LEARY” and directs residents to a website, nobowiecountydatacenters.com.
The land sits in a rural stretch of the county between Hooks, Red Lick and Leary, along F.M. 2253 and F.M. 1398.
Concerns elsewhere in Texas, and nationally, have centered on the water and electricity demands of large data centers and the air emissions from on-site gas generation. A Pew Research Center survey this year found Americans are more likely to view data centers as bad than good for the environment and for household electricity costs, and data-center fights have spilled into local elections from Utah to Virginia to Missouri.
Black Mountain and Fort Worth Power Core could not immediately be reached for comment. The company has not responded to interview requests from other Texas news outlets covering its projects.
TXKtoday will update this story as more information becomes available.