Payne County commissioner raises water concerns over planned Google data center complex in Stillwater

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — A Payne County commissioner is raising new concerns over the massive amount of water a planned Google data center complex in Stillwater could use.

At a recent legislative interim study on the impact of data centers, Payne County Commissioner Rhonda Markum warned state lawmakers that the region’s water supply might not be able to meet the project’s long-term demand.

“I am really concerned about the water usage,” Markum said.

The first phase of the complex, now under construction, will bring two data centers.

“They would use approximately 2.7 million gallons of water a day,” Markum said.

Plans call for four additional data centers at the site, for a total of six.

“With all six of those, if they get those built out, you’re looking at 8.1 million gallons of water a day,” Markum said. “That was a very huge concern to me.”

Stillwater’s water supply comes from Kaw Lake, with the city allowed to draw up to 50 million gallons of water per day. If the data centers eventually use 8.1 million gallons, that would be just under 20 percent of the city’s daily supply.

Those concerns are part of the reason Markum was the only local official to vote against a 25-year tax incentive agreement between the data center’s developers and the local governments with taxing authority over the site—including the city, local school district, and vo-tech district.

“Google didn’t get any incentives from the county,” Markum said. “Most of this was done with the city.”

Stillwater City Manager Brady Moore said the city has more than enough water capacity to support the project.

“Stillwater is blessed that we have 50 million gallons per day water rights off of Kaw Lake,” Moore said.

He said the city currently uses far less than that.

“Our community only draws, on average, about 7 million gallons per day off of those 50 MGD water rights,” Moore said. “We have a peak demand that we’ve hit twice of 14 MGD.”

That would mean, even with the data centers, Stillwater would still have nearly 35 million gallons to spare on an average day—and around 28 million on a peak day.

That’s based on today’s population, but leaders with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board project that statewide water usage will rise by 18 percent over the next 50 years.

“And there are other communities that get off of Kaw Lake as well,” Markum said. “And I’m concerned a lot of the concerns were with the drought that we’ve had in the past. We’ve had a few years of drought back-to-back.”

City officials said as part of the tax agreement, the data center’s owners must help fund water system capacity upgrades before building additional phases.

“They have to make those financial investments into our water treatment plant, and that has an overflow benefit to our community,” Moore said.

Still, Markum said she worries this project may set a precedent for future developments.

“I started doing some research on the data centers,” she said. “I found out that they use a lot of electricity and a lot of water, and without water we can’t live.”