Washington is subsidizing toxic data centers
||| FROM ELISABETH ROBSON |||
While the world marvels at the promise of artificial intelligence, a darker reality hums beneath the surface: the sprawling data centers that power AI and other online applications are poisoning communities, draining water, and gobbling energy at a staggering ecological cost. Here in Washington, one of the nation’s tech hubs, the problem is not hypothetical; it is happening in our backyard, subsidized by taxpayers and overlooked by regulators.
Across the state, tech giants like Microsoft and Sabey Data Centers (SDC) have built massive data centers, lured by generous tax incentives and cheap electricity. These facilities are marketed as engines of progress, but the reality is far bleaker. Data centers are voracious consumers of water and energy. A single medium-sized center can use over 100 million gallons of water annually for cooling, while larger facilities can drain up to five million gallons per day. This water is used up because much of it evaporates and is contaminated with pollutants, and can’t be returned to wastewater treatment plants. Many data centers sit in water-stressed regions, competing directly with farmers, households, and ecosystems for dwindling supplies. Electricity demand and cost is skyrocketing. While here in WA, data centers primarily use power from the dams, around the rest of the country, the primary sources of electricity are natural gas and other fossil fuels.
Even more alarming is the chemical legacy these centers leave behind. Recent reporting has exposed the use of PFAS, known as “forever chemicals,” in cooling systems, electronics, and construction materials. These substances do not break down; they accumulate in soil and water, and are linked to cancer, immune system suppression, birth defects, and high cholesterol. Washington already has PFAS hot spots, including San Juan Island and Whidbey Island, where the Navy base has long contributed to contamination. Now, data centers risk making this toxic legacy worse, adding an industrial layer of pollution to ecosystems already stressed by decades of chemical exposure.
Communities are not just losing water or absorbing chemicals; they are losing agency. Residents near data centers report wells going dry, air pollution, and soil contamination from storing hazardous materials on site, construction, and e-waste. Promises of economic benefit rarely materialize, while the hidden costs—health risks, ecological degradation, increased electricity demand—fall squarely on the public. These are classic sacrifice zones, and in Washington, they are disproportionately imposed on rural areas far from the glamorous headquarters of tech titans.
The ecological crisis extends beyond local communities. Data centers consume staggering quantities of metals, plastics, and rare-earth elements for servers and infrastructure, contributing to mining impacts worldwide. The carbon footprint from mining the materials, manufacturing the computers and other hardware, and building the data centers and powering them, is significant, with fossil-fuel-based electricity and embedded emissions from materials amplifying climate change. The boom’s hunger for data and computing power is inseparable from a global pattern of ecosystem collapse, species loss, and industrial contamination.
No technology should come at the cost of environmental collapse and community harm. We must demand that Washington State stop subsidizing these industrial monsters. If Washington continues to lure tech giants with tax breaks while ignoring PFAS pollution, water depletion, and ecological degradation, we are complicit in an environmental crime. Why are we sacrificing the natural ecology of our state and the health of Washington’s citizens to corporations whose only goal is profit? How soon will we all realize that fake videos of real people stealing things and fake celebrities don’t sustain life like clean water, healthy soils, and thriving communities?
Our choice is clear: we can either subsidize a toxic data boom or insist on ecological integrity and public health. Washington citizens must decide if we will continue to sacrifice the state’s rivers, aquifers, and the wellbeing of communities to data centers, or if we will demand a more responsible path forward.
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Washington State’s Data Center Working Group just last week released its draft recommendations, and they are accepting public comments before revising and sending their final report to the Governor. Comments are due by Monday, October 6.
The draft recommendations: https://dor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2025-09/DCWGDraftRecommendations9_22_25Mtg.pdf
None of the recommendations are acceptable to me; they are all written to continue to incentivize the data center industry to set up shop in WA. The recommendations streamline permitting and treat Washington State as a resource for industry.
I will be writing a comment that urges the working group to recommend eliminating all data center tax incentives in Washington State.
Many thanks for alerting us to these draft recommendations, Elisabeth. This is a subject of intense interest to me, having written about it in a Seattle Times Opinion article published almost a year ago, “The AI Power Struggle”:
https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-ai-power-struggle-data-centers-are-in-a-desperate-search-for-energy/
I was aware of the Governor’s Task Force on Revenue deliberating the many issues raised by data centers, which you summarize above, and had even asked two individuals in his office to keep me appraised of any developments as they were made public. But I had heard nothing until now, and note that they are giving the public only a week to comment, with COMMENTS DUE TODAY. Shame on them for being in such a rush.
Like you I virulently oppose WA state continuing to give tax breaks to the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and other tech giants who are building massive data centers in central Washington, taking advantage of our (at least until recently) cheap hydropower and plentiful water supplies. Unless checked, the costs of these tax breaks will show up in our OPALCO bills, which rose 6% last year and promise to continue doing so for many years in the future, thanks in part to these data centers. Microsoft, for example, has absolutely NO NEED for any tax break. It’s now worth over $4 trillion, is earning over 35% NET PROFITS, and laying off thousands of employees — probably replacing them with AI coding agents they don’t have to pay salaries and benefits.
Thus I will enter a comment today focused on these completely unwarranted tax breaks and urge others to do so immediately. Readers can find the link to make their comments at the Web address Elisabeth has given above.
PS. Readers who cannot access the Seattle Times can find my data center article by searching for it in the Orcasonian or on Orcas Currents.
Thank you Elisabeth for this ongoing conversation. Thank you Michael for your comment and for your contribution. This has been on my mind a lot lately, and I totally agree with you.
In looking at the correlation between AI and the existing corridors of power, mass surveillance, biometrics, and the planned coming of a nationalized crypto currency, it appears that we’re all going to be assigned a “social rating,” the result of the domestic profiling of individuals based on their behavioral characteristics- including one’s credit score, police record, and online comments that are made on social sites, (comments that espouse one’s religious and political views). Your social rating will impact your everyday life… everything from your purchasing power to your access to health care will be impacted… this putting a whole new meaning of the phrase, “You’re either with us or your against us.”
In the short video below investigative reporter Whitney Webb makes it clear that the mass consumption of electricity by AI data centers (though related) is only one of the coming problems relative to an AI future. In her short expose’ you’ll find the connections between big business and government absolutely astounding.
Wikipedia– “Biometric identifiers are the distinctive, measurable characteristics used to label and describe individuals. Biometric identifiers are often categorized as physiological characteristics which are related to the shape of the body. Examples include, but are not limited to fingerprint, palm veins, face recognition, DNA, palm print, hand geometry, iris recognition, retina, odor/scent, voice, shape of ears and gait. Behavioral characteristics are related to the pattern of behavior of a person, including but not limited to mouse movement, typing rhythm, gait, signature, voice, and behavioral profiling. Some researchers have coined the term behaviometrics (behavioral biometrics) to describe the latter class of biometrics.
Something ugly is about to hit America– investigative reporter Whitney Webb (13:21)
“Peter Thiel is no ordinary tech billionaire—he’s the bridge between Silicon Valley’s elite and the national security state. From co-founding PayPal and seeding the so-called “PayPal mafia” to building Palantir into what many call a privatized surveillance empire, Thiel’s ventures have always operated in lockstep with intelligence agencies. This video traces how Thiel, alongside figures like JD Vance and Elon Musk, has blurred the lines between private enterprise and state power—reshaping not only the economy but the very definition of freedom in the digital age.”
“Palantir, which began as a CIA-funded response to the defunded Total Information Awareness program, is now a central player in mass surveillance, domestic profiling, and military AI applications worldwide—from Ukraine to Gaza. Thiel’s companies have consistently undermined civil liberties while expanding their reach into public policy and financial regulation. And now, with Thiel protégé JD Vance on the GOP ticket and poised to influence crypto legislation from the Senate Banking Committee, the stage is set for a new kind of digital authoritarianism—one that wears the mask of innovation but operates through surveillance, censorship, and monopoly power.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PfFr_Q5mog
Thank you Michael and Michael.
I just read “More Everything Forever” by Adam Becker, which is a description of the batsh!t crazy insane fantasies of the techbros running and determining the future of these AI systems, and with it, our society. It is mind-boggling what these people believe. As the blurb says: “In More Everything Forever, science journalist Adam Becker investigates these wildly implausible and often profoundly immoral visions of tomorrow…”.
“Profoundly immoral” is right. It astonishes me every single day that we, the public, are (for the most part) going right along with it, with barely a squeak of resistance… why? Because hey, like they do in Bellingham and Everett city government these days (https://www.heraldnet.com/news/washington-city-officials-are-using-chatgpt-for-government-work/), we can use AI to write letters or do our homework for us. Or we can use AI to make fun/disgusting videos. And of course the militaries of the world can use it to wage more effective wars.
To think that the Washington Data Center Working Group, and the Washington State government is supporting *more* of this just sickens me, honestly.
Just saw two headlines, “AI2 Incubator launches $80M fund as it doubles down on real-world AI applications in Seattle and beyond” and “New platform, familiar risks: Zillow and Expedia bet on OpenAI’s ChatGPT apps rollout”
From the first article, a quote:
“The Seattle-based startup organization — known for spinning out companies at the intersection of AI and real-world applications — has closed an $80 million third fund to support about 70 new tech ventures over the next four years.”
From the second article, a quote:
“In his Platformer newsletter, Casey Newton compared OpenAI’s ambitions to Facebook’s troubled “social graph,” warning that the “AI graph may prove even riskier” to digital privacy given that ChatGPT stores users’ most private conversations.”
This stuff is growing SO FAST. It’s utterly unsustainable, from an electricity and materials standpoint, and from a well-being of society standpoint.
Not that we here in San Juan County can do much to stop this juggernaut, but we can be fully aware of what is coming and how it will affect us (no privacy, much higher electricity bills, vastly degraded environment, accelerating climate change, etc.). And our state is subsidizing all this. I’d put in an eyeroll emoji here if I could.