You Asked: A Meta data center opened in Kuna. How much water will it use?

You Asked: A Meta data center opened in Kuna. How much water will it use?

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Editor’s note: This story first ran earlier this year. With the opening this week of Meta’s new data center, and renewed claims about water use, we wanted to run it for you again, in case you missed it.

Land near Kuna that once grew crops will now power the internet.

In recent years, two new large-scale data centers were approved on former farmland in southern Ada County. The projects, from Facebook’s parent company Meta and Diode Ventures, followed the State of Idaho’s approval of a generous sales tax exemption to draw these data centers to the state in 2020. Now, the Idaho State Legislature and residents are questioning whether data centers should face stricter scrutiny over how much water they use in the Gem State’s high-desert climate.

The City of Kuna says both the Meta project and the Diode Ventures proposal, which is currently on hold due to an ongoing lawsuit, will use far less water than the maximum amount of water rights the farms they replaced had access to. Kuna’s Public Works Director, Adam Wenger, said the Treasure Valley overall is using more water than is going back into the aquifer as the region grows, but he doesn’t think the current data centers planned for Kuna will cause a significant drawdown of the area’s water resources for now.

“Knowing the planned water consumption of these (data centers) versus agriculture, it will be considerably less,” he said. “Given that, do I consider groundwater an unlimited resource? No. There would be water issues here in some number of years, regardless of what that use is. Are we expediting that by pivoting that land to a data center? I don’t think so, but it’s to be determined.”

This is because of the data centers themselves and the availability of land on which they can be developed. Wenger said data centers’ water usage broadly fluctuates depending on the season, especially in Idaho’s cooler winter months. He also said there are only so many large agricultural properties in the “Goldilocks zone” with enough space and substantial enough water rights in the area to support data centers of this size.

But, despite the specific circumstances in Kuna in the short-term, the Idaho Water Users Association and Boise State University Civil Engineering Professor Sondra Miller warn that the state needs to monitor the water use of these large data centers as the population booms and short water years could become more frequent due to climate change.

“One of the consequences of all of this innovation is that all of those computers make a lot of heat and they need to be cooled somehow, so how do we do that?” Miller said. “The fallback has always been water. If you’re taking that water to cool data centers, what are you taking away from everything else, including the people who are moving here to support those industries? It can quickly get out of control.”

How will the data centers get their water?

Each project will use a slightly different system to get the water it needs.

The Meta data center has multiple phases. The first phase will use air only to cool its servers, while the second one will use water, Wenger said. The water will come from the water rights attached to the property from its former life as a farm, which are some of the most senior water rights in the area. This means it will retain access to water even if newer users are cut off in short water rights under Idaho’s system of how it allocates access.

The property is entitled to use nearly 3.7 million gallons of water per day through these water rights and Wenger said the company signed over roughly 2.5 million gallons per day of water rights to the city so they can supply water to the project. The data center includes the construction of a water treatment plant, which will be donated to the City of Kuna to operate and maintain. There isn’t any data on the average flows for the project yet, but at its peak in July and August its expected to use just under 2 million gallons per day.

“We don’t foresee it being a problem, and this facility has a benefit and an entirely standalone system from what provides water to the City of Kuna proper,” Wenger said. “If water completely disappeared in East Kuna, we would still be able to provide water to the rest of the city because they’re on a different system.”

Wenger had less information about the water usage at the Diode Ventures data center. If the developer is given the go-ahead to proceed after litigation, it will operate on a self-contained basis using the water rights available on the property, on-site water treatment, and reinjection back into the aquifer.

According to the Idaho Department of Water Resources, there are three water rights associated with the Diode Ventures property for 1.63 million gallons per day. The company currently has an application pending to transfer these rights from use for irrigation to industrial use at the data center.

Water users push for data centers to follow existing rules

These two data centers might not be taking up more water than would be used otherwise, but that doesn’t mean everyone says Idaho’s water should be ripe for the taking to power big tech.

Paul Arrington, the executive director for the Idaho Water Users Association, said the growth of data centers is an issue of “increasing concern” as those who rely on irrigation are contending with short water years and a boom in demand. He said it’s important for any data centers to comply with the state’s system of allocating water rights to ensure the state’s limited resources are accounted for and distributed fairly.

He pointed to a situation in September where the U.S. Department of Defense announced an RFP to build a data center near the federal government’s lab facilities, which could have possibly included a project near the Idaho National Laboratory. He said this prompted questions about how the project could get water rights in the area and the importance of holding new projects to the rules for their use and requiring an analysis to ensure there is enough water to support them.

Arrington said some sources say innovations in technology mean data centers aren’t as water-intensive as they used to be, but other groups still raise concerns about their impact on the local water table.

“(Information on water use at data centers) appears to be inconsistent and so there is a concern and so that’s why we focus on making sure that the state water law processes and things are followed in terms of analyzing what these new uses would be on water supplies,” he said.

The availability of water rights will likely limit the number of large-scale data centers built in specific areas of Idaho, including in Kuna where Meta and Diode Ventures have already gotten the green light to build. Wenger said the limitations on properties with large water rights and enough room for a data center means the southern Ada County area is likely tapped out for data centers.

He also said that if the Idaho Legislature passes legislation currently under discussion to roll back sales tax exemptions for data centers, it could further slow their development.

“I don’t foresee us getting inundated with dozens of these things popping up left and right,” Wenger said. “I think we’re probably at a saturation point for what we’ll get going forward, and hopefully that’s what we can do to strike a balance between industry and the public.”