By Luisa Loi
La Conner Community News
As protests against data centers continue to make headlines around the nation, Skagit County is taking proactive steps to ensure the protection of farmland and natural resources if the valley is ever eyed for development.
On June 1, the Skagit County Commissioners Ron Wesen and Joe Burns approved a moratorium on new data centers, which applies to land outside of incorporated cities and towns. During this six-month period (which can be extended), Planning and Development Services will be tasked with defining and developing new code that is specific to data centers. Commissioner Peter Browning was absent.
Community members may provide their input at a public hearing at 10:30 a.m. on July 14, in the Commissioners’ Hearing Room located at 1800 Continental Place, Mount Vernon.
In the absence of a definition and rules tailored to these facilities in its code, the county may not be equipped to deal with permit applications. During the meeting, Will Honea, senior deputy for natural resources, explained the moratorium as a necessary precaution, recalling how the county’s lack of regulations specific to Battery Energy Storage Systems allowed a developer to “successfully argue” with the Washington State Energy Facility Site Evaluation Council that the Goldeneye battery project “was consistent with our Comprehensive Plan,” he said.
“The idea here is to get ahead of it and keep local control of our future over this issue,” Honea said, referring to the moratorium.
The moratorium applies to data centers that are larger than 2,000 square feet or have a total anticipated electrical load of 2 megawatts or greater.
While the county has not received any proposals, Honea said the abundance of undeveloped land and open space — achieved through what he described as some of the nation’s strictest farmland and forestry zoning — make the place particularly desirable for this kind of development, as do the low market price per acre for natural resource lands and the relatively low cost of utilities, according to the ordinance.
This flat and buildable land, however, is located on the Skagit River’s historic floodplain, which faces the threats of riverine flooding and volcanic lahar flows from Mount Baker and Glacier Peak. The Skagit County Comprehensive Plan requires the commissioners to discourage new intensive development on the floodplain.
There are currently 88,000 acres of farmland in the county. Skagitonians to Preserve Farmland Executive Director Lora Claus expressed her support for the ordinance, as did Mikala Staples Hughes, a representative from Western Washington Ag.
“Skagit is the last functioning agricultural economy here in the Puget Sound, and we want to protect that, and we want to protect and steward resources — especially water,” Staples Hughes said during the public comment period.
The ordinance addresses water usage concerns, stating that it’s “unclear” whether the Skagit River Basin can meet the additional demand from data centers, which use large volumes of water for their cooling systems.
“The Skagit River already frequently falls below the minimum instream flow established by the Skagit Instream Flow Rule,” the ordinance states, “Leaving Skagit farmers unable to access the modest amount of irrigation water they need to survive in a warming and drying climate.”
Honea also added that farmers have limited access to water because of “a questionable judicial decision back in 2013.” La Conner Community News reached out to Honea for further comment.
He also claimed that Skagit Public Utility District has been facing some pressure, “with folks telling PUD” to consider leasing water to industrial users like data centers “on the theory that they can pay more than farmers,” he said.
In an email to La Conner Community News, General Manager George Sidhu said Skagit PUD has not received any inquiries from data centers about using its water, and that he isn’t aware of any pressure to rent water to data centers.
Sidhu added that the water constraints facing farmers are not a supply issue, but rather a legal one that Skagit PUD addresses, as it has abundant water supply for all current and new customers.
In a press release published on June 10, Skagit PUD explained that the utility, which holds senior water rights, offers a program that temporarily shares a portion of those rights with ag users — who hold interruptible water rights — during the low-flow season, allowing farmers to legally pump water from the Skagit River when levels fall below the minimum instream flow set by the Department of Ecology.
When asked if he expects data centers to have any impact on Skagit’s water supply, Sidhu said he can’t make any estimations as he doesn’t have any information on how much water a potential data center would require. Still, he wrote, a seasonal and temporary water right provided by PUD “is unlikely to meet” the needs of a large industrial user as it typically requires a constant and uninterruptible supply of water.
Luisa Loi is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.
