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Residents press city on data-center water use; staff point to closed-loop cooling and pretreatment requirements
Summary
Questions about water supply, closed-loop cooling, wastewater pretreatment and costs dominated public comments; staff said developers must use city water if inside city limits and wastewater teams would review pretreatment and discharge plans.
Residents repeatedly raised water concerns, asking where large volumes for cooling would come from and whether city water and outlying customers would be affected. Rebecca Michael, a member of the tree commission, said she had looked into closed-loop cooling and worried about recharge cycles; the mayor and zoning staff said closed-loop systems recirculate water but must be drained and recharged occasionally and that wastewater and pretreatment rules would apply.
City staff noted developers proposing in-city projects are required to use the city water system, and that Mark Leonard and Kevin Connor at the wastewater plant would analyze discharge and pretreatment plans. The mayor said major plant upgrades would be expensive and lengthy — staff provided a dated estimate for a full water-plant upgrade in the hundreds of millions — and that large water demands could be grounds to deny service or require developers to pay for upgrades.
