Rural Klickitat County faces surge in data center proposals

Directly surrounding counties — Skamania, Yakima, Benton and Hood River — all unanimously approved data center moratoriums this year, but Klickitat County commissioners did not.

A growing petition in Klickitat County is circulating online, asking county commissioners to enact a moratorium. Begun by White Salmon resident Jenn Sharp and other community members, the petition has nearly 800 signatures as of Oct. 6.

“The process to finalize a comprehensive and robust ordinance which can withstand the legal pressures massive corporations will exert can take several months or even years to complete,” Sharp wrote in an email, using the county’s pending ordinance regulating solar and battery energy storage systems as an example.

She hopes the petition shows elected officials that residents want a moratorium as a guardrail while a proposed data center ordinance is finalized.

Before the petition went online, County Commissioner Todd Andrews presented a draft for a six-month data center moratorium at the commission’s meeting on Aug. 11, though the matter was not on the agenda and no motion was made.

The topic of a moratorium came up again at a Sept. 3 data center workshop, where Commissioners Lori Zoller and Ron Ihrig argued the county should focus on developing a permanent ordinance to regulate data centers instead of a moratorium.

Zoller, who’s seeking reelection to the Klickitat County Commissioner District 2 seat this year, said moratoriums only provide a short pause for proposals and cannot kill projects.

“Mr. Ihrig and I are working hard on this issue for the county and the public, and we are confident we can address the subject,” Zoller said. “That is what we were elected to do. Not to hide behind a moratorium.”

The draft for a proposed data center ordinance became available online for public comment on Sept. 22 to “establish regulations for the siting, permitting, and operation of industrial-scale data center operations.” It specifically lists facilities of 20 megawatts or more.

Zoller described the document as a “living document” that would remain open to public feedback. It might not be ready until Oct. 20 for board approval, pending legal review.

As the ordinance draft currently stands, it still allows data centers, but applicants must meet zoning requirements. The biggest change would be a one-mile setback from homes.

Still, residents worry a data center application will be submitted before the ordinance is finalized.

NDAs and policy background

The data center debate has also spilled into the reelection of the commissioner position at KPUD, which submits the power requests to BPA after receiving a completed form and application fees.

Residents have criticized the KPUD members for signing non-disclosure agreements with the developers. Since then, KPUD commissioners — Doug Miller, Rodney Colton, and Dan Gunkel — released a joint statement on Sept. 22 saying they are advising the KPUD to discontinue NDAs, but that “existing agreements will remain in effect through their current terms.”

Gunkel, who represents District 3, is up for reelection this year.

While a power request is part of the data center building process, it does not guarantee that the facility will be built. Each project in Klickitat County is at a different stage of development. Some have identified land, water and power sources, while others remain in preliminary feasibility stages.

However, no site permits have been submitted to the county planning department. No construction has begun.

If a site plan is submitted, the application goes to the planning commission and Board of County Commissioners. Officials say, however, the review is largely technical and, under current county rules, their power to say no is limited.

“We’ll review it, but all we’re going to be reviewing is for setbacks, height limitations, parking requirements to ensure all the standards are code,” said Klickitat County Planning Director Scott Edelman. “There’s no question as to whether they can do it. It’s simply — are you meeting the standards?”

Previously, the county’s only policy guiding data centers is from 2023, which allows them to be built in industrial parks without requiring a conditional use permit from the Klickitat County Board of Adjustment, which would involve a public hearing on the project.

Residents say allowing data centers on industrial land with so little review eliminates their voice on the topic.

“Because our population is so small, as well as surrounding populations, that could be a reason to target the area ... How many people does it take to stop something like this?” Dallesport resident Liz Mutch said.

The initial 2023 policy also says that Klickitat is a good market for data centers, which would strengthen and diversify the economy.

A Klickitat County economic development representative said that taxes generated from data centers could provide revenue to local services and taxing districts.

“These include fire, EMS, recreation, hospital and school districts as well as regional libraries and the county itself,” the representative said, adding that construction can support around 3,000 temporary workers and once completed, each facility can employ anywhere from 25-75 people.

Where are the data centers?

A former aluminum smelting factory sandwiched between the Columbia River and Highway 14 is the location for a data center being developed by Blue Owl Capital on land owned by NSC Smelter. Goldendale is about five miles away.

It’s the only power request that’s reached a formal agreement through BPA, providing transmission capacity for 160 megawatts of power.

Downstream of the aluminum smelting plant are two additional data center proposals in Dallesport — one on an active orchard owned by Scott Websterand the other on a cliff above the Columbia River, owned by Lakeside Industries. Both facilities plan on using transmission lines from BPA, with external power.

Lakeside Industries and partner Avison Young did not respond to a request for comment. Power application documents say that the data center would have emergency standby generation through diesel generators.

Erica Diaz, executive assistant to Webster’s The Fruit Company, said that Webster is continuing to evaluate the property for “data center development and advanced chip manufacturing opportunities.”

“No developer, buyer, or end user has been selected, and no final development plan or decision regarding the future use of the property has been made,” Diaz added.

The exact locations of the other three data centers are unknown, though documents show Shell Energy and its subsidiary, Savion, a renewable energy developer, are behind the applications.

The three titles are Energizer Data Center and Expanded Capacity, for large-scale computer servers and computing infrastructure; Energizer II, an AI data center; and Vines Rest DC.

Unlike the other data centers, documents show that Vines Rest DC and Energizer II would uniquely start at full power capacity, which means they might have external power identified. The transmission line is on private property owned by Rob Mercer, a vineyard on Klickitat’s eastern border.

When contacted, Mercer confirmed that a “small portion of the property has an easement for a potential tie-in at the Bonneville power line for a nearby solar project.” But it is not the direct location of a data center.

The nearby solar project is Savion’s River Turn Energy Center, a large-scale solar farm with a battery.

However, Kelly Cooper, a spokesperson for Savion, said, “While preliminary feasibility work is underway, there is currently no defined Vines Rest project ... River Turn and Vines Rest are separate development evaluations.”

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This story was originally published by the Washington State Standard. Columbia Gorge News edited it for a local, rather than statewide, audience.