Are data centers good or bad? It comes down to the cost to local communities | In Focus

Published 1:30 pm Wednesday, May 20, 2026

“Data centers are economic engines and technical marvels, but they also come with real costs that communities are only beginning to feel” – Aminu Abdullahi, Tech Republic

This statement pretty much sums up my research on the expansion of data centers across the nation and the state.

Here are the pros and cons of data centers according to Abdullahi:

The pros:

1. “They are an economic catalyst (especially to rural areas)

2. They (mostly) create jobs

3. They can force infrastructure improvements (for better or worse)”

The cons:

1. “They are voracious, grid-straining energy hogs

2. They consume water at an alarming rate [to cool the energy expended to cool the machines]

3. They impose heavy burdens on local communities”

Quincy, Washington in Grant County, has 29 data centers. According to Republican state legislator Alex Ybarra who grew up in Quincy, “Data centers pay about 75% of Quincy’s property tax revenue” (Monica Nickelburg, NPR).

Temporary jobs were created in building the data centers. Housing and motel rooms were rented by workers who moved to Grant County to do the work. Restaurants, grocery stores, and other local businesses saw an increase in customers as more data centers were built. Construction has been going on since 2005 in Grant County. According to Stiffler, “Electricity rates in Washington have jumped 86% over nearly 20 years—outpacing the 51% national average. [data center] Facilities now consume 5.7% of Washington’s total.”

“Quincy proper is a majority Hispanic agricultural community of about 7,500 people, three hours east of Seattle. In the years since the first data centers went up, the share of Quincy residents living below the poverty line has gone from 29.4% to 13.1% in 2023, according to census data.”

According to Nickelburg, there is “No shortage of farming jobs in Quincy, it’s unclear how many data center jobs will be available to [local] students.”

There was initially concern about air pollution from diesel backup generators, but “because hydropower from the Columbia is so reliable, Sabey Data Centers runs its generators about eight hours a year…”

According to Nickelburg: “it’s fairly well known that corporations like this choose low-income rural areas for a couple of reasons….One, they assume that the population is uneducated. They assume that the population won’t be involved in resisting them and usually, rural property is less expensive… Usually, rural governments are looking for investment. And so it’s a perfect storm.”

Data centers have to be dependable. Power can’t go out. There has to be power backup and backups to the backups to make sure the power stays on and the water continues to flow. But with climate change the snowpack is not as dependable as it used to be. Water flows are not as predictable.

Let’s take these points and translate this information to Quincy. There were 29 data centers in Grant County as of August 2025, and most of the 79 pending applications are for additional data centers. (Lisa Stiffler, Geekwire). Data centers are private businesses. They don’t usually have the power to seize land, but public utility districts (PUDs) rely on eminent domain to seize land for the electrical transmission lines and substations required to support massive data center power. In other words, private land is taken without the private owner’s permission.

The combined power required for all those applications is “roughly double the demand for the entire city of Seattle.” That means, in case of a choice between data center power and water for cooling the heat created by the data centers , there will likely be “power blackouts and limited water [for local communities] because data centers have sensitive information.”

Building data centers is an important economic priority for the Trump administration. At the same time Trump “has recently rescinded permits for renewable projects, including a major wind farm planned in Idaho…. Tensions are rising over who will foot the bill for grid updates and growing power demands” (Stiffler).

We have three local data centers: Kent, Tukwila, and Puyallup.

Additionally, tax deferments of up to ten years have been offered as incentives in states like Oregon and Texas. These states have deferred taxes up to ten years, but as of July 1, 2026, Washington state has narrowed its data center tax incentives via Senate Bill 6231, eliminating sales and use tax exemptions or replacement equipment and refurbished data centers while maintaining exemptions for new, original equipment.

Nationwide, data centers are less popular after they are built due to rising costs, more pollution and congestion.

The major question for us all is whether the costs outweigh the benefits. Data centers “impose heavy burdens on local communities.” That includes us in Washington state.