OKLAHOMA CITY– One thing was clear when the Oklahoma House of Representatives’ Utilities Committee held a hearing last week to explore concerns about water use by data centers: a split exists between what city and county leaders think in Stillwater, home of a data center campus under construction by Google.
Before Payne County Commissioner Rhonda Markum and Stillwater City Manager Brady Moore offered somewhat differing opinions about concerns of water use by the data center, information was presented by John Woods of the Oklahoma Department of Commerce.
Woods, an economic development research specialist with the agency, said Oklahoma has at least 36 data centers. The list includes 26 inTulsa, nine in Oklahoma City and one in Stillwater, and nationally known firms including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and Apple are behind them.
“This doesn’t reflect all of the data centers in Oklahoma,” he told the committee. “This does not reflect government-operated data centers nor those by municipalities, the military, the federal government, and private companies.”
Woods also said there are at least six more potential projects “we are currently aware of” and they range from under $5 million to multi-billions of dollars in cost. Of the operational data centers in the state, they have an average of more than nine full-time employees and their average wage is $94,026 annually.
One of those who testified about water demand issues created by the growing number of data centers in the state was Commissioner Markum. She said Stillwater residents have contacted her with concerns about the Google data center under construction in the city.
“People are concerned because of the drought and that they use a lot of electricity and water. They're concerned about water usage. My constituents who live next to this facility are very concerned,” said Markum, who pointed to pictures of flooding that occurred around the construction site on April 30.
Markum said the commissioners are bound by a nondisclosure agreement following talks with the contractor. So far, she said, the county has not had contact with Google.
City Manager Moore gave a more reassuring presentation, relating that talks about the data center campus started in 2018.
By 2019 “we were very excited this was going to be a game-changer,” he said. Then the talks were interrupted and delayed by the covid pandemic in 2020. Company officials conducted yearly checkins with Stillwater.
“They finally contacted us in 2023 and said ‘we've chosen Stillwater.’” Moore also maintained that, despite nondisclosure agreements signed by the city and the county, the records still fell under Open Records Law and were available for viewing. But he also admitted the information was technical in nature and suggested the average Stillwater resident might not have known what the documents really involved. In early 2024, the city went public with a vote on tax issues involving the project.
Stillwater's primary source of water is the Kaw Reservoir eight miles east of Ponca City.
“Stillwater is blessed that we have 50 million gallons per day water rights up at Kaw Lake, a unique water reservoir,” Moore said, adding that it is a lake which even during droughts “stays full.”
Moore said on only two occasions did the city hit peak demand of 14 million gallons per day. The city's northeast zone where the data center campus is being constructed has a daily capacity of 3.2 million gallons of water “for new growth.”
“For the first two phases, the data centers, the economic development agreement approved by our city council allows for 2.7 mgd. That's 2.7 of the 3.2 mgd capacity just in that northeast zone of Stillwater.”
Moore said that should Google want to expand the campus with more data centers, it would have to “invest significant capital” in the Stillwater water treatment plant so it would be capable of carrying any more capacity.