FINNEY COUNTY, Kansas — Ann Gravatt and Jesse Gronner shook hands, offered food and fielded questions from people around the region curious or skeptical about the Oregon-based company’s plans to build a data center. Locals shuffled around the room to learn about what this project entails. Some with arms crossed to send a clear signal about their skepticism.
It will take a lot of water. To be specific, the company Triple Oak Power told local authorities it would take 600 million gallons per year, which is as much as a town of 2,000 people. Gravatt works in external affairs for Triple Oak, notes that as thirsty as it sounds, it would translate to water conservation. After all, the irrigation of crops on that land now pumps five times as much water.
“We will use less water than is currently being used at the property,’ Gravatt said.
Tripe Oak Power wants to take over 6,000 acres of farmland near Garden City to build a data center surrounded by a sprawling array of solar panels, wind turbines and a natural gas plant.
It’s a hard sell for some locals. Data centers notoriously use huge quantities of water. And this region’s relationship with water is existential. Giant center-pivot sprinklers across Kansas spray fields of corn and other crops with water wells tapping deep underground to the shrinking Ogallala Aquifer.
That underground lake has fallen into a perilous decline. And the regional economy depends almost entirely on irrigation.
Gronner said that he takes the shrinking aquifer seriously.
“On the specific issue of water use,” Gronner said, “there's been a lot of efficiencies and evolutions in the industry.”
But that hasn’t stopped data centers from becoming wildly unpopular and have triggered not-in-my-water-basin opposition across the country. More people think data centers cause harm than provide a positive impact.
The new wrinkle in the fight over data centers is places where existing irrigation uses more water than an AI data facility.
Last year, U.S. companies spent $61 billion on their construction. And the utility industry is spending $1.4 trillion over the next five years to power them, scrambling to keep up with countries like China in the international AI arms race.
Western Kansas has already normalized large water use to the point that this data center would consume significantly less water than an average farm in the region. To save its food production and its towns, the High Plains has been making conservation efforts using smarter irrigation techniques and sometimes switching to less water dependent crops.
But it’s still not enough, and this energy company offering an alternative makes it all the more complicated.
“People can be for or against things, but what's really important is to know what (our company) is even talking about,” Gronner said. “We recognize what we're bringing is something that looks and smells like change.”
Triple Oak Power bought over 6,000 acres in southwest Kansas to plant solar panels and batteries and will use elements of wind and natural gas to power a data center.
Gavatt said the data center would use direct evaporative cooling.
“In Topeka this year, there was a lot of proposed legislation saying data centers must be air cooled, likely 90% of the year it will be air cooled, but in the hottest months, it will require water to cool it,” Gavatt said.
Today, those 6,000 acres use 3.2 billion gallons of water a year according to Finney County. That’s more than what all of Garden City uses in a year with a population of almost 30,000.
That’s also more water than a proposed data center called Project Matador in the Texas panhandle is projected to use. It was once proposed as the largest data center in America. The Amarillo Tribune reported that it would require 2.1 billion gallons of water a year to operate, which is a billion gallons less than the farm in Kansas.
Triple Oak estimates the data center project they are proposing will need only 20% of the water that’s been going toward irrigation on those same acres.
Groundwater Management District 3 needed to look at the numbers. That agency’s main goal is to ensure appropriate water use in all southwest Kansas counties.
Trevor Ahring is a civil engineer for the water management district. He measures water usage roughly compared to the large, center-pivot irrigators that dot western Kansas fields. Each one burns through millions of gallons of water a year.
“For me to feel comfortable with that being a reduction in use, we'd be looking at about 15 center pivots. But this is 36 so it's clearly going to save water,” Ahring said.
Ahring said he is neither for or against any potential project, but looking strictly at water use, he said the switch from irrigation lets him allocate more water to neighboring farmers.
“I have a hard time not being excited about a project that's going to save that amount of water,” Ahring said.
Ahring estimates from 2014 to 2023 was closer to 1.3 billion gallons per year for the property. That would still be a water reduction by half from the project.
The water district is proposing a Local Enhanced Management Area, or LEMA, this summer to reduce water use. Ahring says Triple Oak would still have to adhere to the LEMA plan because they purchased existing water rights along with the land.
Still, data centers are often unpopular for their water consumption, for the noise they generate and, in this case, the installation of 3,200 football fields worth of solar panels that will uncover sandy soil.
At the open house in Garden City, Tucker and Jackson Turner stand among the crowd with their arms crossed as they read poster boards explaining how the project will work. The brothers have led the charge opposing this project.
Jackson Turner started the Stop Finney County Kansas Data Center Facebook page.
He’s dubious of Triple Oak’s promises and whether it will be held accountable if the solar panels cause erosion, or if his family’s property across from the data center will face water quality issues.
“These companies aren't telling the truth. This is a huge scale project, a lot of risk, and how can we trust that these risks are being mitigated?” Jackson said.
Jackson said it’s good to save water, but not all water conservation is created equally.
“We absolutely are in a water crisis. The thing is, I don't feel like I can trust them,” Jackson said.
Jackson feels like both the company and Finney County are not being transparent, downplaying the role the data center portion of the project will play.
His family will live just three miles from the sea of solar panels and land development.
Sandhills, dirt roads and crops — this is what they are used to seeing. When installing the solar panels and leveling the land, all of the sandy soil will be exposed. Unless Triple Oak can establish prairie in the region, there’s a chance all that sand will blow away.
Tucker explained how the soil near his property is hard to establish grass once the ground has been leveled.
“It's soft. It leaves imprints, then it starts blowing. And then once it starts blowing, it has all winter long to blow over as many acres as possible,” Tucker said.
Melissa Scanlon is the director of the Center for Water Policy and a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee School of Freshwater Sciences.
She explained that the local anxiety over data centers might be fueled by a lack of regulation.
“There's a real lack of regional and state level planning for these data centers and disclosures of the amount of resources that will be needed and any kind of regulations of those shared resources,” Scanlon said.
One thing she recommends that communities can push for is having data centers invest in local water conservation as a stipulation for using their land and water.
“Have them pay for drip irrigation at the surrounding farms that would reduce the draw on the aquifer and slow the depletion of the aquifer,” Scanlon said.
Triple Oak Power has been reluctant to give out specifics on parts of the project until it signs a deal with a digital infrastructure company to run the data center.
Yet in early June, Finney County officials approved a special use permit that’s key to the project.
Lona Duvall, director of the Finney County Economic Development Corporation, said it diversifies the community’s farming economy into the tech field.
“History tells the stories of the people who embrace change,” Duvall said.
Duvall said her job is not to give her opinion, but to analyze the options and opportunities for the county.
“The reason that we're considering these projects is because it's possible that the benefits far outweigh the costs,” DuVall said.
Triple Oak Power estimates that Finney County would collect over $80 million in taxes over the next 30 years and net over 600 construction jobs. In Kansas, renewable energy projects have a 10-year tax abatement and data centers have a 20-year tax abatement.
But data centers must invest at least $250 million within five years, create 20 full-time jobs within two years and implement a water conservation plan to qualify.
So far, nothing in Finney County has been finalized yet. But the debate among locals on how the water under their backyards is used will continue.
“That change is coming, whether we embrace it or whether we try to buck it,” DuVall said.
Calen Moore covers western Kansas for High Plains Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. You can email him at cmoore@hppr.org.
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