TD Councilors to mull massive water upgrade for Google
By Tom Peterson & James Beasley
How much water does Google need to cool two new data plants in The Dalles?
They're not spilling any details, "trade secrets," they say.
But their request, which could be in the billions of gallons, has City Councilors looking at a massive potable water infrastructure upgrade that would increase water production capacity by 75 percent in the near future - billions of gallons per year.
In raw numbers, The Dalles used 1.31 billion gallons of water in 2020. And that number could easily triple if full build-out of the water system occurs.
Some in The Dalles community are skeptical, saying water for residents should come before industry.
“We’re looking ahead,” assured City Public Works Director Dave Anderson on Friday, Sept. 24. He said diversifying the system and storing surface water in wells will provide ‘proven resilience’ for the system in years to come.
Are local water resources large enough to meet this goal without forcing local residents into water shortages or making negative impacts on local creeks or others reliant on wells?
At a cost of $28.5 million for water system upgrades, It would be the biggest water capacity improvement the City has seen since 1967 when the Crow Creek Reservoir was built in the Dalles Watershed, said Anderson.
And Google has put itself in a good position.
It has acquired minimally 3.88 million gallons per day of water rights from owners of the former Northwest Aluminum property, Anderson said. They can exercise those rights with or without City cooperation.
The Dalles City Council will hold its first public discussions on the matter on Monday, Sept. 27, starting at 5:30 p.m.
Click here for the ZOOM link to the meeting. CCCNews will also broadcast the meeting live on its Facebook Page.
Water Capacity
Currently, the city’s capacity stands at 9.9 million gallons per day, according to a recent study by GSI Water Solutions. The City would expand that to 17.5 million gallons per day to meet peak demand days with new data centers and build-out of the urban growth boundary from Brewery Grade through the Port of The Dalles.
To protect Google’s proprietary knowledge on water usage, the City’s study used Google’s water needs and coupled them with water needs for the future full build-out of residential and commercial property from Brewery Grade through the Port of The Dalles, bordered along Sixth Street. They’re calling it the ‘301 Zone.’
That’s where the 17.5 million gallons per day capacity comes from.
Under a potential agreement, the City would realize a net increase in water rights and supplies to serve the City, according to Anderson’s report.
Big Ask
It goes without question, new data centers could draw billions of gallons of water annually.
A legal battle in Texas lays clean the amount of water a $600 Million Google data center requires.
Google’s development company in Texas called Alamo Mission LLC got into a legal battle with local water utility Rockett Special Utility District, which denied Google’s initial request while saying it does not have the capacity to meet the company’s needs.
According to this legal filing link - see page 8 - Google wants the new data center to have access to as much as 1.46 billion gallons of water a year and up to 4 million gallons per day from Red Oak, a town roughly 20 miles south of Dallas, Texas.
In comparison, the City of The Dalles produced 1.31billion gallons of water in all of 2020 or roughly 3.7 million gallons of water per day on average, according to its 2020 Drinking Water Quality Report.
Google’s water rights, again, are for 3.88 million gallons of water per day. Used at maximum, that is 1.4 billion gallons of water annually.
The Big Questions
“What happens to farms, ranches, orchardists, businesses, and residents who live outside the city limits and might suddenly have water levels in their wells drop,” asked Dawn Rasmussen in a recent Facebook post. “What happens to the potential environmental impact of this proposed water draw to our creeks, including fisheries?”
Ultimately, the question is can The Dalles sustainably supply Google with billions of gallons of water without draining the groundwater reservoir and draining the watershed?
Would we be mortgaging our future for short-term monetary gains at the cost of draining our natural resources and a future filled with rationed water and limited industrial expansion?
You don’t have to look far in the West to find farmland and cities that are rationed to several days a week of watering due to water shortages.
And some see the situation getting worse with the advent of global warming and more extreme drought conditions. The Dalles hit 118 degrees Fahrenheit this summer, an all-time historical high.
The Dalles can produce the water needed and still have some left to spare, according to Anderson.
A Little History
Having enough water has been an issue in The Dalles since the 1950s.
Reports of declining well water were met with a state investigation, and The Dalles Groundwater Reservoir was identified as a critical groundwater area in 1959.
The pool of water lies in a column of fractured basalt 300 feet below ground.
Water rights in The Dalles were capped at 25,251 gallons per minute through 34 assignments of ownership in 1959.
All of those water rights still exist today, but many of them are not utilized to their full potential or are dormant and the water conserved.
That happened because The Dalles Irrigation District received a permit to pull water from the Columbia River in the late 1960s. And in the 1980s’ Northwest Aluminum, which held 5,000 gallons per minute of water rights slowed water usage as the plant was mothballed.
Ever since, The Dalles Groundwater Reservoir has steadily increased in volume, according to reports by the Oregon Department of Geology.
In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the groundwater reservoir was being tapped for 15,000 acre-feet or 4.89 billion gallons of water per year, Anderson said. And the reservoir was only capable of delivering 5,500 acre-feet of water or 1.8 billion gallons annually without dropping the level of the aquifer.
Currently, he said only 1,800 acre-feet - 587 million gallons are being taken from the groundwater reservoir annually.
According to the staff report, the city would also utilize its water rights for 1.3 million gallons per day to meet the demand.
Anderson said the system has the capacity to deliver the water for both Google, residents and other industry.
“I feel confident that we can implement these concepts without adverse effect on other users,” he said.
Anderson had three water studies completed on strategies to support future development, infrastructure and groundwater quality, in preparation for the staff report.
So, where will the water come from?
A combination of groundwater and water from The Dalles Municipal Watershed.
The City Staff report states that two new wells placed on the former Aluminum Plant property with a capacity of producing 5.2 million gallons of water per day could be constructed.
In addition, one of those wells will be used for storing water from The Dalles Municipal Watershed. Water treated at the City’s water treatment plant would be pumped back into the ground through one of the new wells proposed for Google. During fall and winter, millions of gallons of surface water could then be stored for later use use warmer months. It’s called an Aquifer Storage and Recovery Program or ASR.
The City’s Water Treatment Plant, called Wicks, located on Mill Creek, would treat water that would eventually be pumped into a well and into The Dalles Groundwater Reservoir for storage and later use to meet new capacity demands of 17.5 million gallons of water per day.
Build Out
Google is willing to pay the price tag for the infrastructure upgrades necessary to create the water capacity. They would pay for the development and then give title to the City.
According to the staff report, the following projects worth $28.5 million would have to be constructed to meet anticipated demand.
Here are those projects:
• Water main looping to connect the newly constructed 18-inch diameter Port
Water Main to the older 12-inch diameter water main in River Road. This project
will improve the efficiency of water delivery to many water customers in the Port
Area, south of Chenowith Creek.
• Construction of a new groundwater well with an 1800 gallons-per-minute (gpm)
capacity and emergency backup power.
• Construction of a new aquifer storage and recovery-compatible groundwater well with an 1800 gallons per-minute (gpm) capacity and emergency backup power.
• Construction of a new above-ground storage reservoir on the Port to serve the area between Brewery Grade west to the end of the Port of The Dalles, bordered by sixth Street West.
• Construction of a new water booster pump station to deliver water from the new
reservoir to the 310 Zone under proper pressures.
• Construction of a new sanitary sewer lift (pump) station to serve the Google
facility and adjacent industrial customers.
• Construction of a new sanitary sewer force main from the pump station, under the
Union Pacific Railroad tracks, to the newly constructed gravity sewer
main in West 2nd Street.
• Construction of a shared utility access corridor from River Road to Union Pacific Railroad tracks for access to utility systems.
MONEY
Agreements for data centers are potentially worth up to $120 million in taxes and fees over 15 years if both data centers are built.
In addition, the City will be in the position of selling water to Google at the same commercial rate that others receive.
The rate is $3.61 per 1000 gallons of water. So if Google was using 2 billion gallons of water a year, they would be paying $7.22 million annually.
Google Guarantees
In return for the investment, Google wants some guarantees according to Anderson’s Report:
• Credit the cost of providing certain Design/Google-constructed projects against water and sewer SDCs as allowed by the Municipal Code; this will happen regardless of any Agreement because the Municipal Code allows for appropriate costs to be credited against SDCs when an improvement has the capacity to serve others in addition to the developer.
• Not discriminate against Design/Google in the setting of fees, rates, or other charges. Design pays, and will continue to pay, the same water and sewer rates as other commercial/industrial users in the City. Under a development agreement, the City would initiate a water utility rate study within 12 months of the Effective Date. The intent is to set rates sufficient to cover utility needs and see if any rebalancing of rates is needed City-wide. Sometimes, as time goes by, rates and needs drift such that one customer class may be subsidizing another. It is a common practice to evaluate rates as part of a master plan update. Water rates and SDCs will be evaluated with the Master Plan project.
• Seek to supply recharge water to the new ASR well on the Port as feasible.
• Use the same temperature modeling in the issuance of an Industrial Discharge Permit for the New Development, as was done for the Existing Development and other large industrial dischargers in the City.
• Consider a Memorandum of Understanding with Design - Google’s Development Company - regarding water supply scenarios for the water zone in the Port of The Dalles.
• Work cooperatively with Design if there are new rules related to temperature for wastewater discharged to the Columbia.
