The battle over AI infrastructure has arrived in Cle Elum, where a proposed data center is fueling fears over water, power and what's next for the community.
The battle over AI infrastructure has arrived in Cle Elum, where a proposed data center is fueling fears over water, power and what's next for the community.
City leaders responded with an emergency moratorium last week, but the $200 million project that triggered the vote may already be too far along to stop.
The moratorium came just three days after Blue Fern Development unveiled plans for a 100,000-square-foot computing facility near Interstate 90.
City officials said the pause will give them time to study how large computing facilities could affect electricity demand, water supplies, and the community in general.
Is it possible to have a data center here that is not going to hurt us? I don't know yet,” said Cle Elum City Councilmember Beth Williams. “There hasn't been enough time to do a lot of research yet and find out what we can do to stop it versus what we can do to make it work for us if we have to have it.
The project is described as a relatively modest facility that would require 20 megawatts of electricity and create as many as 40 jobs.
Data centers house servers, networking equipment and data storage hardware that support cloud computing, websites and artificial intelligence applications. Their growing power needs have become a source of debate, pitting economic benefits against infrastructure demands and environmental impacts.
As for its draw on local resources, Blue Fern told councilmembers during a presentation last week that it would use a closed-loop cooling system. About 80,000 gallons of water would be needed during its first year of operation, but afterward the cooling liquid could be continuously recirculated.
“They say this will take only a limited amount of water and not the copious amounts that the other data centers, the older data centers, have used, but it's still going to use a lot of power," Williams said.
That electricity usage is a cause of concern among some residents like John Carlson, who has lived in Cle Elum for decades.
“From what I understand with these data centers, they take a lot of electricity and power that we need to sustain our regular usage, and it is increasing rates across the country,” Carlson said.
The moratorium is intended to give the city time to answer some of these questions and concerns before deciding how future data centers should be regulated. The moratorium, however, may not stop the project that prompted it.
Blue Fern's proposal is covered by a development agreement approved in 2002. City officials are still determining whether a data center qualifies as an already permitted commercial or industrial use under that agreement.
“Is there something in the laws from 2002 that they can override the laws from now? We don't know yet, and the attorneys are looking into that,” Williams said.
