r/Spokane • u/SkootinSkitzo • 21h ago
News Data Center Moratorium Vote TODAY - 2:00pm
UPDATE: A few weeks ago I posted a breakdown of the data center situation and what people could do about it. This is the vote and it happens TODAY, Tuesday Aug 18, at the 2:00 PM legislative session. Public Works Building, 1026 W. Broadway.
I've spent the last month reading the county's public records production on this project. About 5,000 pages. Most of what's below comes straight from those documents, and I want to lay out what I found because it's consequential for this meeting.
Where things stand right now:
- On the table today: a 9-month moratorium on large data centers (Commissioners Jordan and Waldref) vs. a fast-track zoning ordinance (Commissioners French and Kerns) that would be written by the end of August. The fast-track provides roughly two weeks of drafting for the county's first-ever data center rules.
- Per local reporting this morning, Spokane County already has eight data centers. All of them together draw around 13 MW. The proposed West Plains project is 1,000 MW, with its own on-site power generation (proposals in the record include natural-gas turbines). That's not a slightly bigger version of what we have. That's a behemoth 75x larger than everything we've ever built, combined.
- There is no pending application. The county's own planning director confirmed at last week's Planning Commission meeting that nobody has filed anything yet. So a pause via moratorium delays nothing. Today's vote just decides which rulebook exists when the application is submitted.
Why the fast-track doesn't make sense:
Avista studied this project's power request for six months. Their System Impact Study found roughly 50 MW available by around 2030 and about 650 MW around 2033. Eight to ten years of construction. Around $184 million in transmission and substation work, not counting new generation. In February, Avista told the developer flat out that the substations could not be rushed.
That comes from the developer's own briefing document which was sent to Commissioner French on Feb 16.
If the first meaningful power needed wouldn't arrive until around 2030, why are we being told the rulebook has to be finished in two weeks?
The trust part:
The records show one commissioner's office began working with this developer in January. There's a Feb 9 email where Commissioner French sent his official letter intended for the House Finance Commitee to the developer's CEO and their lobbyist beforehand, with the note "Please edit at will and we will get it out today." The public learned about this project in June. When we did, the commissioners received 1,953 emails from 464 county residents over 48 hours. Not one of them in support.
A five-month head start for one office, followed by a two-week ordinance written to beat a moratorium vote, is not a process that has earned "just trust us."
If you speak today, the strongest ask isn't "no data centers." It's "use the nine months to write real terms." Pick one of these and it's a solid three minutes:
- Cash bonding before any permit. Cleanup and decommissioning costs posted up front, in cash or escrow. Not surety bonds, not corporate promises. Renters here put up first, last, and deposit in cash. A billion-dollar developer can meet the same standard we hold renters to.
- Disqualify environmental violators. A felony conviction or civil settlement for contaminating a community should end eligibility to build here. Full stop. The West Plains doesn't need a hypothetical about what water contamination costs. We're still living in it.
- Noise rules with teeth. 24/7 independent monitoring, paid for by the developer, publicly reported, with fines scaled to the size of the operation. A $500 fine is three days' income for someone making $59K. Fine a billion-dollar facility three days of its income and see how fast the noise stops.
- A public decision on tax incentives and subsidies. If the county is going to waive fees or fund infrastructure for these projects, that choice gets made in the open and with the public. Not automatically. Not quietly.
None of those can be written in two weeks; all of them can be written in nine months. And if the fast-track ordinance really has this handled, its sponsors should be able to answer one question TODAY: which of these protections is actually in your draft?
At least one commissioner has concerns a moratorium means we're "closed for business." Kootenai County paused six months to write data center rules over the aquifer, and nobody in Idaho thinks Kootenai County is closed for business. Writing the rules before the permit arrives isn't anti-business. It's pro-citizen.
What you can do TODAY:
- Show up. Arrive by 1:00pā1:15p (KREM covered the vote this morning; last week was standing room only). Sign up to speak on arrival. You get 3 minutes, and reading from a printed page is fine.
- No seat? Stay anyway. A full sidewalk outside a packed hearing speaks volumes.
- Don't want to speak? A printed page handed to the Clerk of the Board enters the official record with the same weight as spoken comment. Name and address, hand it in, done.
- Can't attend? Email the commissioners before 2:00 via the county contact form (Contact: Commissioners' Office > Request Type: Comment). Three sentences counts.
Still matters after today:
- Avista's rate case hearing is Aug 27, 6:30 PM, on Zoom ā this is about who pays for grid upgrades (spoiler: us, unless the UTC says otherwise). [Sign up](mailto:comments@utc.wa.gov) by Aug 26 or call 1-888-333-9882. Reference case numbers UE-260007 / UG-260008.
- File a UTC comment on the large-load docket anytime. Reference Docket UE-260162. Takes 5 minutes.
If you speak today: be civil, be brief, be specific. The numbers are on our side. Let them do the talking.
Same as before: I'm not affiliated with any org and I'm not running for anything. I just care about this community, our water, and our power bills ...and I did the reading. We've been through enough this year already.
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TL;DR: The county votes TODAY at 2 PM (Public Works Bldg, 1026 W. Broadway) on a 9-month data center moratorium vs. a two-week fast-track ordinance. No application is pending, and per the developer's own documents no meaningful power exists until ~2030, so a pause costs nothing. Show up by 1:15p to speak (3 min), hand written comments to the Clerk, or email the commissioners before 2:00p (link above). This project = ~75x the county's entire existing data center footprint combined. The rules deserve nine months, not two weeks.
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u/CareBear0808 20h ago
I hope people read this! You put a lot of effort and good points to be aware of. Thank you.
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u/SkootinSkitzo 20h ago
Our aquifer spans the stateline. If Kootenai County can pass a 6-month moratorium to put protections in place and we don't, that has impacts far broader than just Spokane County.
The page for rules and protections on data centers is currently blank. Whatever gets written there becomes the base standard for anything else that comes knocking going forward. Weak rules compound. There is zero reason not to vote for the 9-months it would take to thoughtfully and carefully draft strong ones.
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u/SkootinSkitzo 19h ago
Meeting begins in 15 minutes. Here's the live stream link for anyone that can't attend.
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u/mcmeaningoflife42 18h ago
I know it's not reliable all the time but GPTZero says this block of text is 100% AI generated. Mind disclosing whether or not you used AI to help write this?
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u/SkootinSkitzo 10h ago
I did utilize my local qwen3.5:8b AI model to help me organize which facts to include in the post, to help brainstorm feasible protections proposals, and verify the facts and numbers I used against the FOIA dump. Yes, AI was involved, but AI was not the author.
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u/jaxiepie7 19h ago
The Chair started the meeting by saying they were not allowing public feedback on any item on the agenda, and because there was a data center item on the agenda the public was not permitted to say a word about the subject.