By Luisa Loi
La Conner Community News
Tuesday, following Skagit County’s example, the La Conner Town Council unanimously approved an emergency moratorium on applications for data centers within town limits, effective immediately.
Washington, like many other states in the U.S., is experiencing an “unprecedented growth in demand” for the development of data centers, according to the ordinance.
Data centers are buildings that run many computers tasked with storing, processing and distributing information across the internet to support everyday services, including streaming movies, sending emails and, in recent years, artificial intelligence. According to Forbes, while early data centers mostly stored data, many of the facilities being built today are meant to train and run artificial intelligence, a task that requires more power and resources — including large volumes of water, which is used to cool the computers.
In the ordinance, the Town states it does not have guidelines or policies to appropriately address the data centers’ large-scale use of water and electricity, which could strain the public infrastructure, further deplete water resources during a drought, constrain industrial growth and make La Conner less resilient to climate change.
During the six-month period, staff will study the issues related to data centers and prepare a draft ordinance with revisions to the Town’s land use regulations, perform a State Environmental Policy Act review of the draft, and keep the community involved with a public review process of the proposed amendments.
Community members will have a chance to voice their opinions at a public hearing within the next two months, according to the ordinance.
Similarly, the county’s own six-month moratorium — approved on June 1 — is meant to give Planning and Development Services time to develop new code that is specific to data centers, as the lack of a definition and rules tailored to these facilities in the county code may leave the county unprepared to deal with permit applications. The county’s moratorium only applies to land outside of incorporated cities and towns.
The county’s decision was met with overwhelming support from members of the public who spoke at a public hearing on July 14.
Luisa Loi is a general assignment reporter for La Conner Community News.
