Hamilton County should say NO

Data centers don't belong in our ecosystem until we say so

In 2006 in Dalles, Oregon, Google built a 1.3 million square foot data center, arguably the worlds first Hyper scale Data Center. At the time it was billed as an economic life saver to a community who was in need of a boom.

Nearly 20 years earlier Lockheed Martin closed its aluminum smelting plant that provided thousands of jobs to nearby residents. Google would jump at the opportunity to offer its vision of revitalizing the region. A first of its kind Data Center to be a door way to the future, high tech salvation.

Google promised blue collar jobs, booming real estate prices, and a much needed environmental project to clean up the horrid brown site that was the former Lockheed Martin plant. Twenty years later, after billions invested did Dalles come out ahead?

The answer would probably vary depending on who you ask. For Google it would probably be a resounding yes! However for residents the answer seems a little more complicated.

Google employs around 200 direct employees and another couple hundred contractors. Real estate prices did rise, although not as a direct result of Google, they rose at roughly the same rate as the rest of the pacific northwest area. Google’s promise to bring life back to the abandoned site was already largely false. The superfund site was delisted in the 1990s by EPA after efforts to clean it up after the closure of the Lockheed Martin plant.

Google pays nearly 13 million in local taxes to the city and the county, more than anyone else, however that is after massive tax breaks upwards of 90%. So you could say that Google saved this dying town. To this day Google continues to invest in the site and to the local region. Most notably funding a nearly 30 million dollar water infrastructure project that gives back 100 million gallons of water a year. That may sound great but this Data Center uses over 40 % of the areas water supply on its own equating to 550 million gallons of water annually.

Google claims to have invested 7 billion dollars in Oregon since opening the data center in 2006. That is not even 1% of their net profits in the same time frame.

So did Google save Dalles, Oregon? Yea probably, but it has done so by exploiting its residents, by dangling a carrot in front of them while they chase from behind. Dealing in secrecy, creating conflict between residents and their elected leaders, doubling utility bills, draining resources, attempting to take more land to draw more resources.

Dalles, Oregon continues to survive, while Google continues to expand.

Ecosystems evolve by working together and sharing resources. Species survive by finding harmony with one another.

Data Centers do not belong in our ecosystem, they are actively fighting against other species to take all the resources, they are not interested in sharing.

Hundreds and soon thousands of town, cities and counties just like Dalles, Oregon will continue to survive while data centers and companies that build them will continue to take and expand and then move on to the next ecosystem.

Hamilton County does not need data centers to survive. Hamilton County can thrive without them. I will fight to keep them out until they prove they can join us in our ecosystem, give back instead of take, and find harmony instead of working against us.

Please join me at electwichman.com and help us shape the future for all of our neighbors, for all our communities and for all of Hamilton County.