Nonprofits facilitate forum discussion on concerns about data centers

 

By Catherine Ferguson SNJM

Putting a data center in the Spokane area is causing controversy, so the Spokane City Council issued a year moratorium on accepting, processing, reviewing or approving building permits for new computer data centers, and the Spokane County Commissioners passed a similar ordinance but for only a four-month moratorium that ends on Dec. 15.

During the moratoriums, the city and county will develop ordinances for permanent regulations rather than an indefinite freeze.

Six nonprofit advocacy groups wanting to learn what people think about having data centers held "The People's Public Forum on Data Centers" on Sept. 10 at the Airway Heights Hilton. The groups are 350 Spokane, the Spokane Riverkeeper, The Lands Council, Asians for Collective Liberation, the West Plains Water Coalition and Spokane Environmental Policy Coalition.

At the forum, concerned people of many ages crowded the room to learn about data centers planned for Spokane County. They shared concerns and information and explored ways to work together to be heard.

Representatives from three of the sponsors spoke. They were John Hancock of the West Plains Water Coalition, Amanda Parrish of The Lands Council and Kara Odegard, chair of the Environmental Policy Coalition and former head of Spokane's Sustainability Initiative program.

John's talk explained West Plains area water concerns, warning that because PFAS are used for cooling data centers, it would risk further contamination of West Plains water.

Kara said her coalition represents people concerned about environmental quality. They are providing input to Spokane City Council and Spokane County Commission deliberations.

Concerned that there has been limited public discussion, Amanda said the purpose of the evening was to hear from those who came—what do they see, what do they know and what do they want to happen.

Attendees shared comments.

Many were concerned that the county moratorium expires Dec. 15, and there is little certainty about long-term requirements limiting the impact of data centers on the air, water, environment and energy use. How this affects the availability and cost of clean water and electricity for current users is uncertain.

Many called for extending the moratorium at least a year.

Several highlighted the lack of transparency about what is being planned and promoted.

Spokane 350-member David Camp is concerned that County Commissioner Al French had been in private conversation with a company interested in developing data centers. According to David, the company only exists on paper and has never built a data center. Its director claims he has a data center customer but will not tell who it is.

Other speakers were concerned about hazards for human and animal health and wanted to know whether such issues would be considered in ordinances.

Terry Horne, a West Plains resident, was concerned about the effect of the very long infrasound waves generated by data centers. While humans cannot hear these frequencies, extremely high-pressure levels can be felt as physical vibrations or can cause discomfort like dizziness and pressure in the ear.

Joseph Ghodsee, water commissioner for the East Spokane Water District 1, echoed concern that data centers contaminate the air and water with PFAs—"forever chemicals." PFAS are used to keep servers cool and for fire suppression. In the environment, they last forever.

According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), direct PFAS pollution from data centers is hard to measure and likely limited, because cooling systems generally operate as closed loops.

However, some watchdog groups, such as Food and Water Watch, argue leaks are more common than thought, the industry admits that small leaks are common and prolonged exposure to the fluids degrades the equipment itself.

Experts see data center expansion, especially for artificial intelligence (AI), as increasing PFAS contamination through fire suppression, cooling fluids and chip manufacturing. Without federal or state rules requiring discharge testing, PFAS levels from data centers are unclear.

Another speaker referred to problems that could occur in other sectors if data center construction was pushed through: "The data center push nationally 'is wreaking havoc in the housing sector.' It puts pressure on labor and materials. Prioritizing constructing data centers could mean delays in rebuilding homes destroyed by the recent wildfires."

Still another person was concerned about the difficulty of reversing course once an ordinance permits a project and it becomes "vested," adding, "It is often very hard to force a company to tear a facility down once it is built."

Others wondered why there is need for more data centers when so many already exist.

One claimed there is no good definition of what a data center is.

The AI search online said that data centers are physical facilities or buildings housing networked computer servers, data storage systems and networking equipment that store, processes and distribute large amounts of data. They are the internet's backbone, powering everything from cloud computing and streaming services to online banking, AI information and mobile apps. Some centers are small and local, but hyperscale, cloud campuses are of greatest concern: Massive campuses are run by tech giants, like Amazon Web Services or Microsoft.

According to the American Edge Project, a pro-tech advocacy group and the Technology Councils of North America, Washington has 115 to 134 data centers—among the top 10 states for data center infrastructure.

Not all are massive, enterprise-grade facilities, but an inventory by the Municipal Research and Services Center (MRSC) identified 29 major data centers, with at least 10 more planned.

Larger facilities are primarily in Central and Eastern Washington—Quincy, Moses Lake and East Wenatchee—because of cheap, renewable hydro-energy from the Columbia River, cold winters that provide natural cooling and rural tax exemptions. 

Companies in the Quincy area include Microsoft, Sabey, Vantage Centers, H5 Data Centers and Yahoo. Keel Infrastructure—formerly Bitfarms that operates the one in Moses Lake. Sabey, Microsoft, Bitdeer, T-Mobile and BlackRock have campuses in the East Wenatchee area.

At the forum, one speaker cited a letter from Patty Martin, the mayor of Quincy from 1993 to 1997 and a strong critic of the data industry. She advocated against the rapid expansion of facilities in Quincy since they came.

While current city officials say data centers heavily funded municipal infrastructure—roads, a new hospital and a state-of-the-art high school—Patty said that perspective was shortsighted.

Her core criticisms focus on long-term impacts, noting the city needs to look beyond immediate economic windfalls and focus on its resource limits, like changing mountain snowpacks, population growth and the shift to electric vehicles as competing pressures on the regional power grid.

She believes Quincy's transformation from a farming town to an industrialized outpost fundamentally changed its visual and social character.

In an August interview with Lizz Giordano of Cascade PBS, Patty said, "Quincy had been a food processing town. Now it's controlled by people from large corporations who aren't present. Driving into town, all one see are stacks and stacks—like something out of 'The Lorax'."

She also fights the expansion of backup diesel generators used regularly to ensure 100 percent server uptime. She urges the state to regulate potential health hazards from their diesel emissions.

The forum ended with organizers urging people to attend upcoming meetings to voice their opinions and push to extend the moratorium. They provided a list of September and October meetings of the County Commissioners, the City Council and Planning Commission on the Data Center Draft Ordinance.

For information, visit landscouncil.org/spokane-data-centers.