West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey said on October 10 that chestnut and chinquapin trees at the former Clements State Tree Nursery in Mason County will be relocated within the property, per the governor's office. The nursery is on the site of Nscale's Monarch Compute Campus, and Nscale controls access to it. The work is scheduled for late 2027, during the trees' dormant season, under professional arborist supervision. Nscale will pay the full cost.
The plan is a commitment in a press statement. It covers relocation, continued access for seed and sapling harvesting, and backup stock: the American Chestnut Foundation and two state agencies have set up several two-acre stands on state land, plus two plots of grafts and seedlings. The statement does not say whether any of it is written into a permit, and it gives no tree count. An advocacy group, the Global Justice Ecology Project, had said about 200 blight-surviving American chestnuts faced clearing, per Yahoo News. State officials and the foundation assessed the site on October 5.
The campus is large. Nscale lists up to 2,250 acres and potential power draw of 8 gigawatts or more, with gas generators on site and a goal of 2 gigawatts by the first half of 2028, per Nscale. Its March announcement named Microsoft under a letter of intent for up to 1.35 gigawatts. Some coverage ties the campus to Anthropic. Nscale's release does not mention it.
This is the same pattern we tracked in Frederick County: local objections attach to a specific piece of land, and the developer's schedule absorbs the answer. Here the answer costs Nscale an arborist and a season. The state has certified the project, and the governor announced the fix himself.
Bottom Line
A grove of rare trees became a line item, paid by the developer and scheduled around its build. If you are siting a large campus, survey for this kind of local asset before you close on the land, because the fix is cheap early and public late. If you live near one, a press statement is weaker than a permit condition, so ask which one you have.