An explosion of data center facilities, including the one pictured here in northeast Oregon on May 18, 2026, have been built along the Columbia River Gorge during the last few years. (Photo by Jordan Gale/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
A new data center campus could soon be coming to federal land near Hermiston in eastern Oregon.
It would be the first in Oregon sited on federal public land, and one of at least 12 proposed for more than 17,500 Bureau of Land Management acres across western states under President Donald Trumpâs July 2025 executive order to hasten data center development.
The proposals on federal land in Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming were first reported last week by The Washington Sun, whose reporters reviewed difficult to find right-of-way requests via BLMâs Mineral and Land Records System. The bulk of federally managed land in the U.S. is in the West, including in Oregon where half the stateâs land is owned and managed by the federal government. Oregon is among the top 10 markets for data centers in the U.S., according to Pew Research.
Under the executive order, Trump mandated that federally owned land and resources be used for âthe expeditious and orderly development of data centers (…) to be used in service of the prosperity and security of the American people.â Itâs the first time the Bureau of Land Management, tasked with managing more than 245 million public acres for uses that include animal grazing, timber harvesting and recreation, has been ordered to include data centers in its portfolio.
Several months after Trump issued the order, the California-based energy company Copia, which has an office in Lake Oswego, submitted an application to site the Charlestown Data Center and Battery Energy Storage System in Umatilla County on 106 acres of BLM land. The company most recently submitted a draft plan for development of the data center project on May 8, 2026, available only via federal public records request, according to Sarah Bennet, a spokesperson for the bureauâs Northwest region office.
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A Copia spokesperson reached by the Capital Chronicle on Monday declined to comment on the project.
Umatilla County is already home to some of Oregonâs largest data centers and 20% of the stateâs roughly 111 facilities, according to a recent analysis from ECOnorthwest and the University of Virginia. Other estimates put the number of data centers in Oregon at more than 140, owing to the difficulty in defining what exactly constitutes a data center, and Umatilla County has the second-largest share of the server farms among the 36 counties in the state.
Copia is also behind the Snake River Energy Data Center proposed on BLM land in Jerome, Lincoln and Gooding Counties in southern Idaho. The project includes solar energy arrays, battery storage and transmission, and is currently beginning an environmental review, according to Bennet, who added that there is currently no approved federal timeline for the project.
âData centers are becoming a key part of the infrastructure that supports our nationâs technology, security, and economic growth. And the BLM remains committed to managing public lands so they continue to serve the needs of current and future generations, whether those needs involve technology, recreation, conservation or economic opportunity,â Bennet said in an email.
The Rhea Data Center project, proposed by a subsidiary of Nevada-based Arevia Power on more than 3,200 acres of federal land south of Boise, could become the largest data center in Idaho. It would include a natural gas power facility, according to The Washington Sun, and would connect to a utility-scale solar energy project also being proposed for development on federal land by another Arevia subsidiary.
Two data centers are being considered on BLM land in Utah and four are being proposed in Arizona on more than 3,000 acres. The exact locations of each project, as well as the scope of the projects, will become publicly available as the federal environmental review process begins, according to The Washington Sun.
Only one data center proposed on federal public land has been approved so far, but that project â on 80 acres of federal land near Boulder City, Nevadaâ was put on hold earlier this month after the city sued the Bureau of Land Management over a lack of public comment period, and for modifying the scope of the project without conducting a new environmental review.
This story was originally produced by Oregon Capital Chronicle, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Washington State Standard, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Source: Washington State Standard
This article was originally published by Washington State Standard.
