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Commissioner raises infrastructure, water and power concerns after visiting large data center campus
Summary
Commissioner Rosman described a tour of a roughly 1,000‑acre Amazon Web Services campus and raised concerns about the scale of water and energy use, local infrastructure limitations, and the need for a planning ordinance; county staff said a draft ordinance and EADS update are expected at an upcoming planning meeting.
Commissioner Rosman reported on visiting an Amazon Web Services campus and outlined the scale and some operational details, saying the campus is large, tightly secured and uses water for summer cooling. He said the campus includes multiple large buildings and that one completed building is roughly 250,000 square feet.
"They use roughly 1,300,000 gallons of water per year to cool that building," Commissioner Rosman said, and he described the facility as operating mainly on air cooling except during hot months. Rosman said the county’s current infrastructure — transmission lines, roads and access — is not sufficient for comparable developments and noted planning staff have been asked to pursue an ordinance; the EADS group is expected to appear at the planning meeting to provide a timeline for a draft.
