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AGENDA�DATA CENTERS IN OREGON: ��WATER, WETLANDS, & THE PATH FORWARD

  • Introduction
  • Northeastern Data Centers – Kaleb Lay
  • Central Oregon Data Centers – Ben Gordon
  • Washington Co. – Kelsey Shaw Nakama
  • Policy Concepts – Catherine Thomasson

 

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TYPES OF DATA CENTERS

Definition

A “data center” is essentially a warehoused collection of computers for “building, running, and delivering applications and services”

1990’s

Dedicated

Company owned and operated; typically located on site. Power use in kW - 1 MW, uses AC. About 10 internet exchanges or telecom.

2000’s

Colocation

Multi-Tenant DCs in leased space. 10’s of MW. Power efficiency improved. Capitol Expenditure 10’s of $Mil. (64 total in Pdx, Hillsboro, Eugene)

2010’s

Cloud Computing

Software as a service, Cloud Computing, Hyperscale Single-Tenant. Capital: 100s of $M to $B. 100’s of MW

2020’s Hyperscale AI

AI-Private equity driven, 100s of acres. Capitol Expense: 10’s of $B. Nvidia GPUs. Rack power density 600 kW to 1MW by 2030. Only 1 scheduled build in Oregon

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https://www.datacentermap.com/usa/oregon/

•GoDataCenters

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138 DATA CENTERS IN OREGON

  • Oregon is 3rd in the world for # of data centers after Virginia and Beijing
  • 64- Boardman- 31; Hermiston-15; Umatilla 18 almost all Amazon w 4 other entities. All hyperscale Cloud; Prineville-13 Bend 2 all Meta & 4 Apple;
  • Dalles 6-all Google
  • Other estimates higher
  • Hillsboro(40);Pdx 9 mixed-42 Company-owned DCs such as Flexential, Digital Realty
  • GoDataCenters

Oregon Data Centers - 136 Facilities from 24 Operators-DataCenterMap.com

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40

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Presentation by Kaleb Lay, ORA Director of Policy & Research

kalebl@oregonrural.org; 541-805-8651

Thirst for Profit

Data Centers & Water in the

Lower Umatilla Basin

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LUBGWMA

Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area

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LUBGWMA

Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area

Drinking water pollution from nitrate and PFAS

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Some of the worst industrial air pollution in the PNW

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Billions of dollars in economic output & corporate profits each year

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Disproportionately low-income working class

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One of the most diverse regions in Oregon, and disproportionately non-english speaking

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Oregon’s Worst Sacrifice Zone

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LUBGWMA

Lower Umatilla Basin Groundwater Management Area

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Lower Umatilla Data Centers

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Water Consumption

Fact #1 Eastern Oregon data centers use massive amounts of water every year, equal to the water use of tens of thousands of homes, with more demand coming.

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Fact #2 Water use by Eastern Oregon data centers causes mass evaporation by design & is highly water-consumptive, not “closed-loop.”

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Fact #3 Data Centers use more cooling water in the hot summer months, when water is in higher demand and scarcer.

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Water Consumption

Total for 3 campuses: 40,424,850 gallons of water used in 2025

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Water Consumption

Total for 19+ campuses… ???

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Water Contamination

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Example: PDX 90 Nitrate

Water in from City of Boardman, July 2025:

4.26 mg/L nitrate

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Wastewater sent to Port of Morrow, August 2025:

23.9 mg/L nitrate

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Nitrate increased more than five-fold

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The Big One

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Amazon’s “Exascale” Campus

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AWS “Threemile” Exascale Data Center Campus

1,300 gallons per minute of peak demand water use

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1 GW of new energy demand

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Sited on historic grazing land

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Likely to use diesel generators for backup power - directly upwind of Boardman

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At least $720 million in anticipated tax breaks

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Prineville

Ben Gordon, Central Oregon LandWatch

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A groundwater

dependent system

Prineville relies almost entirely on groundwater wells

No major surface reservoir system

Supply is:

  • Finite
  • Slow to recharge
  • Increasingly uncertain under climate stress

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Municipal Water

Total municipal production

~600 million gallons per year

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Who uses municipal water

  • Residential
  • Commercial
  • Industrial (including data centers)

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Agriculture is not part of this system—it operates through separate irrigation districts and water rights.

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How Prineville’s Data Centers Use Water

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  • Air-side cooling (primary)
  • Evaporative misting (secondary)

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  • Efficient per unit
  • Still large total users at scale

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How Much Water Are We Talking About?

Meta (recent)

68 million gallons/year

≈ 187,000 gallons/day

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Apple (2016)

27 million gallons/year

≈ 74,000 gallons/day

Meta (peak)

117 million gallons/year

≈ 320,000 gallons/day

≈ 9 swimming pools/day

≈ 15 swimming pools/day

≈ 3 swimming pools/day

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Share of the System

City total: ~600 million gallons/year

Individual campuses:

    • 5–10% of total system scale

Combined data centers:

    • ~15% of municipal water use, and counting

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Apple Expansion and Transparency Gap

  • Apple campus:
    • Expanded beyond original facility
    • Plans for continued growth
  • But:
    • No updated public water-use total

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Mitigation Systems

  1. Aquifer Storage & Recovery (ASR)
  2. Stores water underground during low demand
  3. Recovers it during peak demand

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2.) Wetlands Complex

What feeds it:

  • Treated wastewater from Prineville’s wastewater treatment plant

What it does:

  • Further filters and improves water quality
  • Allows some water to infiltrate into groundwater
  • Supports habitat and ecological function

What it doesn’t do:

  • Does not provide 1:1 replacement for pumped groundwater
  • Loses water to evaporation and plant uptake

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3) Wastewater reuse

  • Reduces demand for fresh groundwater

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4) Efficiency improvements

  • Lower water use per unit of computing

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5) Regulatory mitigation

  • Required under Oregon water law
  • Sometimes over-mitigation

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Core Tensions

Finite groundwater system

Peak demand pressure

Industrial land use

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What Comes Next

In Prineville, we are drawing from a finite aquifer—and we don’t yet know if growth is outpacing the system’s limits.

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Washington County

Kelsey Shaw Nakama, JD�Tualatin Riverkeepers

kelsey@tualatinriverkeepers.org

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The Tualatin River Watershed

  • Watershed covers 712 square miles (455,680 Acres)
  • River runs almost 90 miles and is fed by over 900 miles of tributary streams
  • Begins at ~2,000 ft. above sea level then drops almost 1,800 ft. within the first 15 miles. In the remaining 70 miles, the river descends less than 200 feet.
  • Provides drinking water to more than 458,000 customers

Image: Tualatin Soil & Water Conservation District

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Hillsboro Over Time

In Washington County, the footprint of the industry as a whole and of the individual centers are growing:

  • Regular push to expand the Urban Growth Boundary
    • E.g. Senate Bills 1586 (2026)
  • Multi-acre buildings becoming the norm

May 2010

February 2025

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Data Centers in the Watershed

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Waterways & Wetlands

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Displacement and Disruption of a Watershed

Wetlands dredged and filled

  • Reduces surface water retention areas
      • Loss of flood resilience
      • Decrease in slow, filtered groundwater reabsorption
  • Loss of important wildlife habitat

Hundreds of acres of new impervious surfaces

  • Increases stormwater runoff
    • Increased erosion along stream and river banks
  • Impedes groundwater reabsorption

2010

2024

2025

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Crane Data Center Forest Grove

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Collecting Watershed Specific Data on Data Centers

  • Direct water intake
    • Records requests received from Hillsboro Water Department and Tualatin Valley Water District with volume of water used by data centers
      • HWD | total billed usage for 18 addresses:
        • 50,655,837 gal (67,717 CCF) in 2024
        • 57,288,066 gal (76,583 CCF) in 2025
      • TVWD | meter usage data for 4 addresses:
        • 61,472,884 gal in 2024
        • 60,269,352 gal in 2025
  • Displaced or Disrupted Water Cycle
    • Record request sent to Department of State Lands for permitting records to determine acres of wetlands filled

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What’s Next?

  • Continue asking questions and collecting data!
  • Coalition building at the local, state, regional, and federal levels
  • Advocating for local ordinance and code reforms
    • Improved public engagement
    • Zoning review
  • Advocating for regulations on data center construction and resource consumption
    • Water equivalent to the POWER Act (2025)
    • Transparency
    • Moratorium?

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POLICY DISCUSSION-Catherine Thomasson

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Issues to be Addressed by Policy

  • Lack of transparency in water use and projections
  • Large water use in face of scarcity
    • Typical 100MW DC will consume 100 mil. Gallons/y = 2500 people
    • Water cooling for fossil and nuclear energy use
    • Indirect use in making computer chips
  • Unknown levels of pollutants in wastewater
    • PFAS, Biocides, anti-scaling agents, corrosion inhibitors, heavy metals, and others.
  • Thermal pollution of wastewater
  • High costs to develop new water sources or infrastructure for storage
  • Passing costs onto other ratepayers
  • Lack of Federal Regulation-2025 AI Action Plan from Trump Admin bypasses environmental review and fast-tracks permitting.

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Water Use Policies-Transparency

  • Require transparency in water consumption year round
    • More consumption in summer when air cooling is insufficient
  • Transparency in Power Use which impacts water
  • Fossil fueled and nuclear power plants use a lot of cooling water
    • Less in OR with no building of new fossil fuel plants “yet”
    • Future concerns about use of nuclear
  • Amount of water evaporated
  • What chemicals used and measured in wastewater-New concerns of PFAS in Hermiston groundwater.
  • Require wastewater to be treated
  • Thermal testing of wastewater
  • Disclosure examples VA HB 2035 & IL-SB 3830 (Neither passed)

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Controls on Water Volume

  • Require Environmental Impact statement for siting new facilities or renewing water permits
  • Require water efficiency technologies IL-SB 3830 - not passed
  • Require use of non-potable water
  • Require fees paid by corporations to support state regulation: Inspection, permits, enforcement
  • Incentivizing or regulating water use efficiency standards
  • New OR Water Regulatory Department (OWRD) permit requirements for water usage of data centers over 30MW even if using municipal source before construction

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Proactive Community Water Benefits

  • Municipal requirement for accurate forecasting and revenue for cities’ water needs and infrastructure
  • Require Data Centers to pay for infrastructure upgrades and water use at a higher level than residential or business use.
  • Maximum extent practicable technology requirements
  • Re-use water or use non-potable water. Warning not to use for irrigation if it has pollutants.

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OPB article linked Pipeline diverts Dog River water to The Dalles Reservoir

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High Value Requirements

  • Require Green Building Certification for Data Centers
    • Require highest level Gold or platinum
    • Require c0-development of new renewable energy sources (reduces use of back up generators and water from fossil fuel sources.
    • Low or no water usage or recycled water
  • Require payment for water infrastructure that will meet needs of new demand before building.
  • EU reporting required for sustainability frameworks
    • Power
    • Materials
    • Equipment

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Short Term Action - Moratorium

  • Over 100 cities and counties have passed moratoriums on new permitting until regulations in place.
  • Georgia, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin considering bills. See link.
  • Maine just passed an 18-month moratorium on 20MW-or-more sized data centers
  • Supported by Columbia Riverkeepers, Public Citizen, Third Act and others.

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SO AS TO PROHIBIT DATA CENTERS WITHIN THE BELTLINE OVERLAY DISTRICT; AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES-Sept.2024

Prince George's County to pause data center development

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Take Action

  • Send a letter and/or call your elected officials
  • Local: Ask for a moratorium if Data Centers are being considered because of high water use.
  • Ask for one of the policy actions to state legislators and the Governor
    • Moratorium
    • Transparency on water and power use
    • Require Environmental Impact Assessment
    • Require renewable energy production or other policies
  • Sign up with an organization

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Join Organizations Taking Action!

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  • The recording and slides will be sent out.
  • Reach out to any of the speakers:
  • thomassonct@gmail.com
  • Ben@colw.org Ben Gordon
  • kelsey@tualatinriverkeepers.org Kelsey Shaw Nakama
  • kalebl@oregonrural.org Kaleb Lay
  • Thanks to Josh Baker and Lace Thornberg for communications support
  • Co-hosts: Oregon PSR, Tualatin Riverkeepers, OR Agricultural Trust, Oregon Rural Action, Central Oregon LandWatch, OR Dems-Environmental Caucus, MCAT

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Save the Date: May 21st

Next webinar: Economics and Land Use implications of Data Centers

Jobs, tax incentives and more.

Register here.

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Other Resources

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