How a newspaper pried Google’s data center water use into the open in The Dalles

When The Oregonian asked the City of The Dalles in 2021 how much water Google’s data centers used, the city refused, calling the figures Google’s trade secrets. The Wasco County District Attorney ordered the records released. Instead of complying, the city sued the newspaper and reporter Mike Rogoway in Wasco County Circuit Court, a “reverse” public-records suit, with Google paying the city’s legal costs. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press defended the paper.

The timing mattered. In November 2021 the city council had unanimously approved two more Google data centers, before residents knew how much water the existing ones used.

The settlement. In December 2022, after 13 months, the city settled. It released Google’s annual water use for 2012 through 2021, agreed to release future years on request, and paid $53,000 toward the Reporters Committee’s legal fees, an amount Google committed to cover. Google said it would stop claiming site-level water use as a trade secret at its U.S. data centers.

What the numbers showed. Google’s water use in The Dalles nearly tripled in five years, reaching 274.5 million gallons in 2021, more than a quarter of the city’s water.

Why it matters. Communities can’t weigh a data center’s burden on water, power and infrastructure if the numbers are secret. Public records laws are often the fastest, cheapest tool residents have, and this case is now the leading example in the West. The same logic applies to electricity: special contracts between utilities and data centers should be filed in public dockets, where ratepayer advocates can test whether other customers are subsidizing them.

Sources: Reporters Committee, Dec. 15, 2022 · AP, Dec. 15, 2022