Each month, we highlight a Super Volunteer of the Month, a member who has gone above and beyond to advocate for clean air and children’s health. Our members in states across the country are more important than ever as we work to preserve clean air and climate protections. Will you join us?
This month, we are celebrating Shaena Crossland, a mom, store owner, and community organizer based in Tucker County, West Virginia. Shaena was nominated by Moms’ West Virginia organizer, Lani Wean, for her work fighting the proposed Ridgeline Project—a large gas-fired power plant with backup diesel generators that will power an AI data center campus straddling Tucker and Grant Counties. Construction on this massive project is expected to begin early next year, and when fully built out, it could cover thousands of acres with several data centers, making it one of the largest polluting data center campuses in the world. Projects like this are the reason air pollution associated with AI is expected to result in as many as 1,300 premature deaths per year by 2030.
Tell Congress: Protect Families From Dangerous Data Center Air Pollution
Shaena is a community organizer for Tucker United, a local organization that came together specifically to fight the Ridgeline Project and protect the surrounding area from more extractive, polluting industry. We talked to her about what it’s like to be living a David and Goliath story and how she’s helped get her whole community involved.
How did you first become interested in environmental and air quality issues?
I was born in the 1980s, so I’m definitely in the generation where you learned the risks of, say, plastic straws and what they do to sea turtles and things like that. But I became motivated to learn more—and extremely active—after plans for the Ridgeline Project became public knowledge in April 2025. This complex would be less than a mile from the town, less than a mile from Davis Thomas Elementary Middle School, and less than a mile from my home.
How did you learn about the Ridgeline Project, and what was your initial response?
We learned about Ridgeline when the local paper published a notice about an air quality permit. A local resident saw the notice, looked up the permit, and found that it was heavily redacted. That raised a red flag. She called some local officials here in the town, and nobody knew anything about the project.
Tucker United formed really fast after that. We hosted a town meeting at the local fire hall here in Davis. There were 300 people there, in person and on Zoom, and we all had a lot of questions.
We started diving in, trying to figure out what we could about Fundamental Data, the company behind the Ridgeline Project. This company just popped up in 2024. There’s really no information about it online. It’s just a logo and a copyright. The gentleman who owns the company is a developer, but there’s no history of them building a major energy project like Ridgeline. We did reach out to him last year, but the answers he gave to the questions we had were vague to say the least.
What are your biggest concerns about the Ridgeline Project?
One of the biggest issues that we have with the project is the air quality permit for the power plant, which labels Ridgeline a minor source of pollution as opposed to a major source. Facilities like this need a lot of permits, but when you’re considered a minor source of pollution, it’s a lot easier to get those permits.
We started reaching out to scientists, environmentalists, people who know what they’re talking about. We pulled together funds to commission a study from a lab at Harvard University about the impact this will have on our air. It’s a very conservative study, but it showed the Ridgeline Project would actually be technically a major source of pollution—not minor. It was heartbreaking as a resident to think that the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection [which had issued the permit] wasn’t protecting us. Their job is to protect the environment, to protect the people, right?
So we partnered with West Virginia Highlands Conservancy and the Sierra Club to go before the state Air Quality Board to argue against the Ridgeline permit. We told them we didn’t think that they had issued the permit correctly, and we wanted them to revoke it. The Air Quality Board heard our case but, in February of this year, said WVDEP was within their rights to issue the permit.
So now we’re working on taking this case to the West Virginia Supreme Court. [If the state Supreme Court vacates the air permit, it could delay construction on the project.]
Has your daughter been involved in this advocacy too?
My daughter is 16, and she has been independent from day one. You won’t necessarily see her at a rally or press conference, but she helps me through education. She’s been involved in youth government since she was seven. She goes to youth leadership camp in the summer. So when I talk to her about Tucker United, we have in-depth conversations where she suggests other ways to think about things or explains parts of legislation to me. She’s highly supportive.
Have you experienced any recent wins?
The people of Tucker County coming together as fast as they did and organizing was a big win. If you drive around locally, you see local businesses and private residencies with signs in their yards and in their windows opposing Ridgeline. We’ve come together as a community to say, “Hold up. We have questions, we deserve answers, and we definitely deserve better than what you’re giving us.”
Learn more about the air, climate, and health impacts of AI data centers.
Tell Congress: Protect Families From Dangerous Data Center Air Pollution