Pocatello’s city government will take up the contentious data center debate this week when the City Council hears an appeal of a rejected proposal for a massive computing facility on the site of a former polysilicon plant.
The Council is scheduled to hear arguments on July 16 regarding a $2.6 billion data center proposal submitted by Lex Developments. A hearing examiner denied the project on May 14, ruling that the company failed to demonstrate the facility would not harm community health, safety, or welfare. The City Council itself rejected the proposal in May as well.
Water and Energy Concerns Drive Opposition
Data center proposals have sparked significant pushback across Idaho and nationally, with concerns centering on the massive resource demands these facilities impose on local communities. The intensity of these facilities’ energy consumption has become a focal point of the debate.
One prominent voice in the discussion, Josh Johnson, characterized the scale of the challenge bluntly: “It’s not hyperbole to say that the energy use of data centers is unprecedented, in terms of the cumulative amount of energy that the data centers will use.”
The numbers underscore the concern. Utah’s proposed Stratos data center in Box Elder County is expected to require at least 7 gigawatts of power—more than double the entire state of Utah’s current energy consumption. A medium-sized data center can consume water equivalent to an 18-hole golf course or a large alfalfa field annually, placing additional pressure on regional water supplies in the intermountain West.
Idaho Tightens Data Center Rules, Maintains Tax Breaks
The Idaho Legislature addressed some of these concerns during this year’s session by requiring new data centers to use closed-loop water systems for cooling. These systems recirculate water rather than relying on evaporative cooling, which draws far more water from local sources. Under the law, data centers that do not employ closed-loop systems must obtain their cooling water from a municipality or public utility.
Despite these restrictions, Idaho continues to offer tax incentives to lure data center development. An effort to eliminate those incentives failed in the legislature this year, leaving the state’s financial inducements in place even as energy and water pressures mount.
Johnson has called for a reassessment of Idaho’s approach. “We should be not only dialing back the incentives for data centers to come here, because those companies have a lot of money—they can pay their own way if they want to build in Idaho,” he said, reflecting concerns that public money should not subsidize projects that large corporations can finance independently.
What Comes Next
The City Council’s decision on the appeal will set an important precedent for how Pocatello handles future data center proposals. The hearing on July 16 will give both supporters and opponents of the project a chance to present their case before the Council makes a final determination. The outcome could influence how other Southeast Idaho communities evaluate similar proposals as data center developers continue to eye the region for expansion opportunities.
Concerns about regional power demand have also prompted Bannock County to explore small nuclear reactors as a potential solution to growing power needs, reflecting broader uncertainty about how the region will meet future energy demands.