Amazon’s Walla Walla data center plan sparks tension between protesters, local officials

WALLA WALLA, Wash. — More than four hundred Washingtonians across 19 locations took to the streets Sunday to demand a statewide moratorium on data centers. 

In Walla Walla, where a $4.8 billion Amazon data center project is planned, the tension among opponents and local officials was palpable.

“Some of you standing here today have been called extremists and communists for standing with us,” Ben Mattice, co-founder of the Walla Walla Anti-Data Center League said to a crowd of about 60. “You are not extremists for wanting transparency. You are not extremists for wanting clean drinking water.”

The state, home to 130 data centers, offers tax breaks on labor and new computer equipment for data center operators. Washington ranks 10th in the country for the number of data centers in operation. 

“It is our job to call on officials … to protect our communities and to, at the very least, put a pause on hyperscale data centers,” Mattice said.

Shortly after the rally, roughly 40 people waved signs, chanted and marched to the office of Melissa Shumake, the county’s community development director. Shumake, who has served as director for less than a year, has the sole authority to require Amazon to submit an environmental impact statement regarding their proposed construction of 16 data center buildings.

Members of the league say that Amazon’s development has been shrouded in secrecy. They’re fearful that Amazon will use more water than they’re allowed to, or worse, pollute aquifers. They point to what happened in Morrow and Umatilla County just across the Oregon border where earlier this year Amazon agreed to pay more than $20 million to settle a lawsuit alleging the company’s data centers contaminated groundwater with nitrate. 

Meanwhile, local officials are growing frustrated, saying Amazon has “outright” permission to develop its data centers in the Wallula Gap Business Park, some 30 miles west of Walla Walla. It’s been estimated that the project will bring in $5 million a year in personal property taxes for the county.

It wasn’t until February that the Walla Walla Port Commission announced that Amazon Web Services was behind the 2024 purchase of some 500 acres in the business park. 

The port commissioners, according to Executive Director Patrick Reay, signed a non-disclosure agreement with Amazon back in March 2023 – more than a year before Advance Phase LLC, a company owned by Amazon, purchased the land from the port. The agreement barred commissioners from stating the company’s involvement until this year, Reay said. 

It seemed like the kind of deal the port couldn’t pass up. Nearly $5 billion of private capital investment would produce over 700 jobs throughout the four-phase development of the project, according to a 2024 report on the sale agreement. By comparison, the total assessed value of properties in Walla Walla County was around $10 billion that year. 

“Where else could your assessed value raise by approximately 50% on 554 acres?” Reay said. “It was a real estate transaction for us that met our mission.”

During each phase of development, Amazon has planned to construct four data center buildings, each about 215,000 square feet, according to the 2024 report, though the specifics listed are subject to change as the project develops, Reay said. 

Amazon is currently jumping through the bureaucratic hurdles of permitting. The county has entered a public comment phase running through Oct. 12 on behalf of Amazon’s permit application. 

Amazon said it is constructing three, not four, data centers in this first phase, which it anticipates building out over the next three years, according to a State Environmental Policy Act document submitted to Walla Walla County. 

Amazon also stated its estimated annual water use is “considerably lower” than previous agriculture operators on the property. Annually, it’s estimated to use 18 million gallons of surface water for cooling computer equipment and 6 million gallons of groundwater for domestic use. 

Amazon did not disclose how much energy will be needed to operate the data centers. 

Back in August, after hearing local opposition, Amazon deliberately submitted an incomplete permitting application to the county so that it could “engage directly with the community,” according to a Frequently Asked Questions document Amazon made public regarding its Walla Walla data center project. It hosted an open house that drew around 300 attendees in Burbank. 

“Since 2010, Amazon has invested over $400 billion in Washington including infrastructure and compensation to employees and has over 95,000 employees in the state,” according to a statement from Amazon. The company “is committed to responsible development and being a long-term, positive presence in the Walla Walla community.”

The FAQ document said the company will annually use 14 million gallons of water to cool its server equipment, but in its SEPA checklist submitted to the county, it estimated using 18 million gallons. When asked about the difference between the two figures, Amazon did not immediately respond.

Amazon recently launched the “Built Together” initiative, a program dedicated to serving communities near their data centers. It will fund community college and workforce development, energy efficiency upgrades for K-12 schools and other needs specific to the community.  

Growing opposition

Data center projects have become flashpoints in recent months at all levels of government. In Washington, for example, Seattle and Spokane passed data center moratoriums. Skamania, Benton, and Yakima, counties also enacted moratoriums, while neighboring Klickitat County, with just 24,000 residents, is seeing a growing movement against new development after six projects requested enough power to energize up to 6 million homes.

Major data center projects in Utah and New Mexico have generated national headlines as they spawned large protest movements. In Washington D.C., the issue is scrambling usual party lines as the president backs data centers and a bipartisan coalition in Congress is calling for restrictions.

Washington lawmakers tried but failed to pass a sweeping data center regulation bill in the last session. The bill’s sponsor Rep. Beth Doglio, D-Olympia, plans to bring the bill back next year with a provision to ban local officials from signing non-disclosure agreements with developers.

A moratorium is “a short-term solution,” Doglio said. “I’m far more interested in putting in place guardrails to not only address future development of data centers, but also do a look back and make sure utilities have contracts in place that protect ratepayers.” 

Over the summer, the Walla Walla Anti-Data Center League garnered nearly 1,900 signatures on two separate petitions for a data center moratorium. Members of the league host town halls, meet with local stakeholders, table at community events and file public records requests to local government agencies, Mattice said. 

The strategy is to “make this entire county unpalatable for Amazon,” Mattice said. The group is “[doing] as many things as we can to put rocks in the gears to slow the thing down in hopes that either the bubble bursts and they don’t need it anymore or they go elsewhere.”

Each week, members of the league attend county commissioner meetings to ask for a moratorium and an environmental impact statement. 

The county commissioners haven’t acted. Todd Kimball, one of three, said that even if the county placed a moratorium on data centers, it wouldn’t stop Amazon’s development. 

“They have an application in. It grandfathers them into the old rules,” Kimball said. 

Kimball, who has been in office for 10 years, has grown frustrated with some of the group’s claims about the county, saying it has been more transparent than ever.

“We’ve done more to educate the public with this project than any other ever in Walla Walla County,” Kimball said. “The application is online, which we’ve never posted before.”

Amazon’s 550-acre project is located in the heart of the Wallula Gap Business Park, an industrial-zoned property adjacent to Highway 12 and the Columbia River. The park offers electricity, potable water, natural gas and sewer lines to industries operating on its grounds. 

The anti-data center group is pointing to Shumake, the county’s development director, to ensure an environmental impact statement is prepared, but she doesn’t think it will be necessary. 

“If I determined that somehow there are impacts that cannot be mitigated, then I would potentially require them to do a full EIS,” Shumake said.

“This is an industrial zone with a project that ultimately has a smaller impact than other projects in the same industrial zone,” Shumake said. 

“We have to have data centers somewhere,” Shumake added. “And in an industrial zone without population centers nearby, where there’s existing water rights. Like, I can think of a lot worse places where this might go.”

Earthjustice, an environmental law firm tackling data centers across the country, disagrees. The permitting application that Amazon submitted lacked specific details that are required to exempt an environmental impact statement, attorney Jan Hasselman wrote in a public comment to the county. 

Source: Washington State Standard

This article was originally published by Washington State Standard.