You're fine.

Good afternoon.

Like to call the meeting to order, please.

Thank you for everybody showing up.

Um, I'm Brian Sullivan.

I've been nominated as the chair for this committee, uh, the ad hoc committee.

Um thought I would read out just the names for those who don't know who's on the committee.

Hopefully I don't miss anybody.

Um Andy Durkin, Paul Babb, Tammy Burke, Karen Burns, Chris Kellogg, Mackenzie Christensen, Julia Crane, Jim Cambich, Jim Keenan, Kayla Lappin, Johnny McLean, Bob Morris, Stephanie Serene, Kelly Sullivan, Hattie Thatcher, Todd Dragidja.

And Sarah Bordoom.

Um for starters, just to remind everybody what we're doing is uh assessing the facts and figures around the Sabi data center.

Um so I'd start by so it's a it's a working committee, and we've we've you can tell we've kind of gone back and forth and struggled a little bit with uh being able to communicate and and have audio visual.

So we this is our first time in this room.

Um, but this is gonna be a working committee, so I would start by asking if there's any comments or questions around our minutes from last week.

So moved.

All in favor.

Opposed.

Okay.

Uh this week we are going to discuss um up on the screen, you could see what our uh mission statement is.

The the uh agenda was there, the agenda first item on the agenda for us to discuss is going to be the industrial water discussion.

Uh, the intent here is to discuss industrial water to the site, um, potable water to the site, and if we have information um to do discharge.

Uh don't know if Sarah was going to come or not.

Um, so we'll start with the industrial water supply.

There she is.

So what we're gonna do is in order for the presentation, go to the podium and uh the gentleman will present on the industrial water.

If you could please.

So Jim Keenan, Bob Morse.

Mr.

Chairman, can you hear me?

My name is Jim Keenan.

I'm the water plant superintendent for the city and county of Butte Silver Bow, and I'm gonna be presenting along with Bob Morris here on our industrial water system.

So I'll uh I'll go through a lot of background and history and water rights information on the industrial water system, then I'll turn it over to Bob.

And I think he's gonna do a few slides on data center water requirements and a little more information on what SABE's looking at.

So I'll go ahead and start.

Hopefully, I can read one of the screens.

Um that's a picture of Silver Lake that I took last summer at the end of July.

Everybody's probably seen Silver Lake and the Silver Lake Pump Station.

The Silver Lake Water System is comprised of a complex network of reservoirs, streams, diversion structures, flumes, pipelines, pump stations that are used to manage the surface water resources located within the Warm Springs Creek watershed in Deer Lodge County, Montana.

The Silver Lake Water System is owned and operated by the city and county of Butte Silver Bow and is managed for the purposes of providing water to a variety of industries within Deer Lodge and Silver Bow Counties, as well as providing in-stream fisheries flows.

I think you gotta point that at that thing so you know, Bob.

Um so this is this is kind of a complicated map, but the intent is to communicate that the Silver Lake Water System and the potable drinking water system are two separate independent systems.

So everything you can see on the right hand side of that drawing that's blue or light blue is all drinking water, potable water system.

The dark blue lines are the raw water uh conveyance transmission lines leading to the water treatment plants, all the light blue lines are the treated water leaving the water treatment plants and going into the distribution system in Butte, where all of the blue is that's all part of the potable water system.

And the pink, uh, if you look up at the very top of that, that drawing where that point of entry to the Silver Lake Water System Pipeline, that's just west of Anaconda.

So that's where we take water for our industrial users into the Silver Lake Water System transmission line.

And that transmission line originally was built in 1900 when they were building the washow smelter, and it ended at the Washoe Smelter, but in 1967, when they built the concentrator at the Berkeley Pit, they extended that line another 23 miles from Smelter Hill into Butte.

And then the insert in the map that's magnified shows the Montana Connections business park where the proposed data center would be, kind of at the south end of that map.

Um is where where I understand that it's gonna be.

And you can see within that system, that Montana Connection system is just west of I-15, just south of that industrial water system pipeline.

Um you can see that we have both blue and pink in that area.

We have both potable water and industrial, or I keep calling it industrial water, silver lake water system water, both within in that business park out there.

So just to reiterate that Silver Lake is a separate system.

The Silver Lake Water System is a separate standalone system that's financially supported by payments received from customers of the system and does not receive any subsidy from the ratepayers of the portable water system or the taxpayers of Butte Silver Bow.

Now, the opposite's actually not true.

There are payments made by users, one user of the Silver Lake Water System that actually the money that they pay for their Silver Lake Water System water goes into the potable water system.

That's the way the agreement was set up back in 1996 when they first set up that agreement.

So anyway, everything in blue is potable water system that was built for the mines and the inhabitants around the original construction was late 1800s, early 1900s, and everything in pink is associated with the industrial water system that was originally built late 1800s, early 1900s, originally just to serve water to the washo um smelter in Anaconda.

This is a little history, a little bit of the history.

There's a whole lot of history associated with the Silver Lake water system, but I didn't want to try and cram it all in, and I probably should have uh reduced this a little bit for brevity, but I'll just go through it quickly.

In 1883 was the initial construction of Myers Dam on Warm Springs Creek.

So as early as 1883, they were interested in taking water off of Warm Springs Creek for industrial purposes.

In 1897, the Anaconda Company started claiming water rights in the upper reaches of the Warm Springs Creek drainage.

1899 they built Storm Lake Dam, which is a 500 foot long 30 foot high dam that re-increased the lake level by 27 feet.

In 1900 and 1901, the dam at the outlet of Upper Twin Lakes was constructed, and the Twin Lakes diversion and Twin Lakes Creek Diversion and Flume were constructed.

So Twin Lakes Creek is as I'll explain later in the presentation, provides a lot of the water to Silver Lake.

1901, Twin Lakes Creek and Storm Lake Creek were first turned into Silver Lake for the very first time, and that's when they built the first pump station on Silver Lake.

Silver Lake is kind of a unique lake in that it sits on a divide between the Flint Creek drainage and the Warms Creek tree, Warm Springs Creek drainage, and it really doesn't have a natural inlet or outlet.

So we fill it from creeks and adjacent drainages.

In 1918 was the construction of the East Dam at Silver Lake and enlargement of the West Dam at Silver Lake so that they could impound more water.

1919 was the construction of the pump station on Georgetown Lake.

1967 approximately, the Silver Lake Pump Station was rebuilt and replaced with vertical turbine pumps that take water from approximately 65 feet below the floor of the pump station.

And in 1967 is also when they extended that pipeline.

They installed a 34-inch pipe from Smelter Hill near Anaconda all the way to the weed concentrator for the Berkeley pit.

And that was constructed.

I think I already explained the rest of that.

1996, Butte Silver Bow acquired the Silver Lake Water System as well as the potable water system through the efforts of some folks that took on a class action lawsuit, and Butte Silver Bow ended up with both the potable water system and the industrial water system.

There were a lot of improvements made in the late 90s.

I think they invested around 10 to 12 million dollars into the Silver Lake water system.

At that time, that involved improvements to the West Dam at Silver Lake, East Dam at Silver Lake, rehabilitation of the dam at Storm Lake, rebuilt the pumps at Silver Lake, and they replaced how many feet?

About three miles of old deteriorated pipe between Myers Diversion and Smelter Hill.

About 1996, the Tiffet Pump Station was constructed along with approximately 19,000 feet of 30-inch pipeline.

At that time, that pump station and pipeline were built to serve ASMI that was just coming online at that time, and more recent improvements.

There's been a couple.

Replacement of a portion of the Twin Lakes Flume took place in 2011, and the Silver Lake Water System Improvements Project is just kicking off right now.

Some electrical improvements at Silver Lake Pump Station and Ramsey Pump Station.

So this is just a picture of the Silver Lake Water System without the potable water system, so you can see a little bit more detail of the Silver Lake water system.

So I'll just kind of go west to east on that drawing.

Very west, up in the northwest end corner of that map is Georgetown Lake.

The yellow square with the P in it is the Georgetown Lake Pump Station.

And a little bit below that pump station, that little yellow square, you can see a little blue line that kind of looks like a railroad track.

So in the spring, after we filled up Silver Lake, we're allowed to store water from Silver Lake and Georgetown Lake up to 1920 acre feet and pump it back into Silver Lake between October and March.

And then moving east at Silver Lake, we've got the pump station on Silver Lake where we, if we need to put water from our storage into Warm Springs Creek, we pump most of it out of Silver Lake.

There is a little bit of gravity that we can release from the lake, but that that gets the lake gets too low pretty quick, and then we have to pump the water out of the lake and into Warm Springs Creek.

And then the two creeks coming in from the south, the westward, the most west one is Storm Lake Creek, where we can take Storm Lake Creek water into Silver Lake and store it.

And we a little bit further east is Twin Lakes Creek, where we can take water from Twin Lakes Creek and store that water in Silver Lake.

So then moving to the east is the Silver Lake Aqueduct, and that eventually dumps into Warm Springs Creek.

And then where the big pink arrow is, it looks like my slide got a little messed up here.

But where that big pink arrow is is the intake into the Silver Lake Water System transmission line at Myers Diversion, just west of Anaconda.

So that's the beginning of that 30-mile-long pipeline that goes all the way to the concentrator in Butte.

And we can take two kinds of water into the pipeline.

We can take water from our direct flow rights on Warm Springs Creek.

And if we don't have enough water in Warm Springs Creek, or if our right's in priority, we can supplement water from storage into Warm Springs Creek and pick it up at Myers Diversion.

So from Myers Diversion, the first stretch of pipe is 60-inch pipe that I believe was installed in 1963.

Then there is uh 54-inch pipe that was installed in the 90s to replace some deteriorated pipe between Myers Diversion and Smelter Hill.

The first user on the system is right after Smelter Hill, Dave Gates generating station.

And that 34-inch transmission line goes from Smelter Hill to the first, the next set of users is down there at Tiffit in the Montana Connections Business Park.

That's about 15 miles of 34-inch pipe, and then it extends another eight miles all the way to Montana Resources.

Whoops, I went backwards.

Hold the remote upside down.

There we go.

So just moving west to east as far as pumping facilities and storage facilities.

This is the Georgetown Lake pump station.

A lot of people probably recognize that little building on the edge of Georgetown Lake.

As I explained a little bit already, B Silver has the right to store up to 1,920 acre feet of water from Silver Lake in the spring when we filled it up, and then between October and March, we can pump that water back into Silver Lake through about 10,600 feet of 42 inch and 34-inch pipe.

Silver Lake Pump Station, everybody's probably familiar with that picture.

The total capacity of Silver Lake is 17,0105 acre feet.

But Silver Bowns a storage water right in Silver Lake of 13,138 acre feet.

And that can be filled and successfully refilled up to 17,000 acre feet per year from Twin Lakes Creek and Storm Lake Creek.

Inside the pump station on the lower right hand corner, you can see the inside of that pump station.

We have two vertical turbine pumps that each can produce about 15,000 gallons per minute for a total of a little bit over 43.2 million gallons per day.

And the Silver Lake Pump Station is one of the components of the Silver Lake Water System.

Improvement projects is just gonna kick off or just kicking off right now.

We'll be replacing those old 2400 volt motors with 480 volt motors that we'll be able to control the speed of, and we'll have uh all new switch gear and VFDs inside the building.

Storm Lake, Storm Lake total storage is just under 3,000 acre feet.

We have a storage water right of a little over 3300 acre feet in Storm Lake.

A direct flow water right from Storm Lake Creek is 189 CFS or 12,500 acre feet per year.

I don't know if Storm Lake Creek could ever make that much water in a year, but that's what the water right abstract says.

Um and then water from Storm Lake or Storm Lake Creek can be stored in Silver Lake or released to Warm Springs Creek via the aqueduct at Silver Lake.

So we can release water from storage or we can take it off of Storm Lake Creek, either or we don't have to release water from Silver Lake to take water off of Storm Lake Creek.

So we're gonna have to turn your head to the left, it looks like depending on where you're sitting.

Uh Twin Lakes Diversion, this is below the upper uh the Twin Lakes, Upper Twin Lake.

There's a small old dam on that that Butte Silverbow built that only impounds about 200 acre feet.

But a lot of our water that we store in Silver Lake comes from Twin Lakes Creek.

So the long, a little bit lighter colored blue line that I have going over the diversion by the lower red arrow, that's the that's the path of Twin Lakes Creek, sorry about that.

And then you can see that upper arrow, that upper red arrow is where we steer it into the flume that leads to Silver Lake.

So that that underground buried pipe runs for about a mile and a half, and then it dumps into that trapezoidal asphalt line ditch and runs for about another two miles to Silver Lake.

Going backwards again with the remote of the Warm Springs Creek just west of Anaconda at Myers Diversion.

This is where we divert water off of Warm Springs Creek into our pipeline and to our users.

So there's that pink arrow again.

That's the point of entry to the Silver Lake water system pipeline.

So the heavier, darker blue line is the path of Warm Springs Creek towards the left side of the drawing, it goes over uh Myers diversion, and we divert some of the water in the path of that lighter blue line through our settling pond, and then we bring it into the point of entry to the pipeline where that white rectangle is inside there.

We have some traveling screens where we remove remove any debris that wasn't settled out in the settling pond, and then any water, any diverted water that we don't take into the pipeline flows over a weir and rejoins Warm Springs Creek.

So that upper right hand picture has a little different perspective where you can see the diversion and our intake into the pond in the foreground and in the background.

You can see that brick building, that's the screen house and the point of entry to the pipeline.

Okay, this one's kind of a busy slide with a lot going on on it, but I think there's a lot of useful information on there.

All those horizontal lines represent Butte Silver Bows direct flow water rights off of Warm Springs Creek.

So not including water that we can release from storage, those are B Silver Bows water rights from Warm Springs Creek.

You add them all up, it says we have 57 CFS or around 35.3 million gallons per day, but I'm not going to stand here and tell you that we've got 35 million gallons per day that we can put into the pipeline at Warm Springs Creek.

There's often, like right now, there's probably 10 or 12 million gallons going down the creek.

So there's not that much water going down the creek, and uh then during irrigation season, it gets a lot more complicated with allocation agreements and who gets their water first and second and third.

So but the thing that I really want to point out on this slide or on this chart is the squiggly blue line going from 2004 all the way through September of 2020.

That's the total pipe consumption of water that we put into the pipe at Myers diversion from all of our users.

Montana Resources, REC, the other users in Montana Connections, Dave Gates, that is the combined flow of all of those users.

So in the biggest reason for the variability in the consumption from year to year is Montana resources.

All the other users are pretty steady, but over the years, Montana resources consumption, there's been a lot of variability in that.

In the early 2000s, when they were using a lot of water, that's after when they were coming back online after the suspension of mining, and they needed a lot of water to fill up the tailings and poundment and get everything back up and running.

In 2008 through 2012, that's kind of their base flow for their process, or at least it used to be their base flow needs for their process.

Um that would vary a little bit seasonally because they would they would manage their water, their water consumption so that they were taking it when the irrigators didn't need it.

So they'd take their water, fill things up in the off season, and their demand would be reduced during the irrigation season.

So then from 2013 through 2016 is when my or 2013 through 2015 is what I have on my slide.

That's when Montana resources increase their pond volume for dust control.

So you can see that their consumption was up quite a few years, and that again is total consumption, just uh not just Montana resources, but Montana Resources affects that chart more than anybody else does.

So I just the point I want to make here is during those higher demand years from 2013 to 2016, we were able to meet all of the users' requirements from our direct flow rights off of Warm Springs Creek without the need to augment, augment augument, it just made up a new word.

Augment that uh that consumption from our storage reservoirs.

And then in 2015, Montana Resources started to reduce their Silver Lake water system consumption, and then 2019 they started pumping and treating the Berkeley Pit water, which meets most of their base flow needs.

So you can see from 2020, but really in 2019 is when they're you know their their consumption really stabilized and they're using a lot less water than they historically have.

And you know, talking to some folks at Montana Resources, they expect that to be the trend going forward.

This next slide is the same information.

I just started a little later at 2007 and ran it through the end of 2025.

So that number in the blue bar graph there shows the total consumption from all of our users on the Silver Lake water system.

So you can see during those higher demand years when we were producing or providing up almost 8.5 million gallons for a daily average to our users, and that consumption has gone down considerably, and again, we were able to meet even those higher flow years from our direct flow rights off of Warm Springs Creek.

And then I just broke out 2025 consumption.

I think that's probably a pretty common breakdown of the percentage each of the users consumes.

52% went to Montana Resources, 39% went to RVC and the other users in the Montana Connections Business Park, uh Northwestern Energy's Dave Gates generating station near Annacon used about four and a half percent, and then other users.

There's a cemetery by Crackerville, Copper Mountain Park, probably meter errors and leakage and and those type of things probably account for that four and a half percent.

All right, this is my last slide.

This is just kind of uh facility elevation and pipeline schematic for the Silver Lake Water Show so that Myers Dam on the upper left, that again is the point of entry to the pipeline, and between Myers Dam and Smelter Hill, there's 17,000 feet of that 60 inch pipe that was installed in 63.

And then it shows 14,000 or 1400 feet of 42 inch pipe and 19,000 feet of 60 inch existing wood pipe that was all replaced in the late 90s with that 54 inch steel pipe that was installed, 21,000 feet of steel pipe, and they bypass the Smelter Hill head tank so that water no longer opens up to the atmosphere.

It's Smelter Hill, so I think that probably increased the conveyance capacity of the remainder of the line quite a bit.

So then it goes from Smelter Hill about 15 miles to Ramsey, where it serves those two pump stations at the bottom of the schematic here.

The Tiffet Pump Station provides water to REC and all of the users out there in the Montana Connections business park, and that one was built.

That was the one at the lower left hand side of that slide.

That one was built along with OSMI in the late 90s.

The one on the right is the best picture I could find of the inside of the Ramsey pump station.

That pump station was built in the 60s, late 60s when they were moving that water to the concentrator.

Most of the time, those users, whether it's out in the Montana Connections business park or at Ramsey, we're able to provide their water by gravity, and we don't need to pump it.

There's gravity bypasses in both of those pump stations, so it's only periods of higher than normal demand that those pumps will run in either pump station.

So yeah, the Ramsey Pump Station has about an 18 million gallon per day pump station and pumps water to Montana resources, and then there's the new, I guess it's not new anymore, but 1996, 1997 30 inch ductile iron line that was installed to bring water to at that point at that time REC, but that brings the water out to Montana Connections.

So with that, I'll turn it over to uh Bob Morris and I'll stand by for any questions anybody might have afterwards.

Thanks, Bill.

Thank you, Jim.

Um when I started this project, I we've all heard uh that data centers use a lot of water, and so I was concerned about that.

So I thought, well, how much water does a data center use and how much do we have available?

So I set out to answer those questions and kind of wrap my head around it.

And the place I started was with Mitzi Rossillion's report.

In one of the slides, the the blue slide with all the the uh timelines, the bottom of that says Rosilian 2016.

I would encourage you to go look at that report.

Excellent history on the on the water system.

So I did that, and then I uh tagged along with Jim one day and toured the system to look at it, and so I understood better how it worked, and then then I started to study how much water data centers use.

And so this is a summary of what of my learnings over the last uh several months.

So I'm gonna uh go over some of the material that Jim did, but I'm gonna simplify it.

And uh there's a lot of great information that Jim gave us on the variable rates and water rights and so forth, but I'm gonna I'm gonna use averages here so we can get our heads around it.

And so to reiterate what Jim said, the the uh water system, we call it the Silver Lake water system, but it's really the Warm Springs Creek water system.

As Jim mentioned, um, almost never do we pump water out of silver or Georgetown lakes.

In fact, the only time the that we pump uh recently pumped water out of Silver Lake is to improve uh fish habitat in Warm Springs Creek as it uh flows down towards the Clark Fork River.

Um so most of the water comes out of the Storm Lake and Twin Lakes areas, and and Jim mentioned we can divert the water back up into Silver Lake.

I haven't shown that for simplicity, and then I show the industrial water system here using the uh Pink or Magenta to match the slides that Jim had.

And so we tap that off at Myers, and there's a lot of nuanced water rights, but on average about 25 million gallons per day is what our water rate would add up to with sufficient water.

Okay.

And of that, last year at Jim Jim's last slide showed that we used 2.5 million gallons per day.

So we're pulling about 10 percent of the capacity that that we own on that on water right presently.

Okay.

Then the water goes down as Jim mentioned to the Dave Gates generating station, that's a natural gas plant operated by Northwestern Energy, and then it flows into Montana resources through a pumping station, and then down to Montana Connections, and then I've also shown the data center there, proposed data center in the Montana Connections.

And then I've also shown the data center there, proposed data center in the Montana Connections.

Now keep in mind when this system was designed 120 some years ago, it was designed for the mines, and where most of the water went historically was to the smelter, which is no longer there.

So the vast majority of the water went to the smelter, that loads gone.

So basically, this is a very um uh lowly uh uh or untapped resource.

Okay.

So then the the data center I put on there and the expected water usage at that data center is 0.04 million gallons per day.

And I'll I'll I'll go into that.

So the point here is that um the the data center expected data center water usage is a very small part of the industrial water system.

And then to reiterate again what Jim said about the potable water system is that it's completely separate and it's sourced from the Big Hole River, Basin Creek Reservoir, and Molten Reservoir, and it averages about six point three million gallons per day.

So that's what Butte uses, so quite a bit more than the industrial water system uh capacity or you know, more than twice that capacity.

So if you do look at some of the numbers, the potable water system, just over six million gallons a day.

An average home in the United States uses about 300 gallons a day.

So if you look at the number of homes in Butte Silver Bow and multiply by 300, you get about three million gallons a day.

So the other three million gallons I presume goes to industrial and commercial users.

Another number I thought would be fun to pull out.

If you turn on your garden hose and let it run all day, you know, five to ten gallons a minute, you're gonna use fourteen thousand five hundred gallons per day.

Okay, quite a bit.

Now the industrial water system, again, reiterating what was on the previous slide, uh maximum sustainable average capacity per day is 25 million gallons per day.

We're presently using about 10% of that.

And the proposed data center usage is just under 16 million gallons per year, and I'll go into that in more detail, which which averages about 44,000 gallons a day, or about 0.2% of that 25 million gallons.

So it's a very a very light load on that industrial water system.

So then to reiterate again what Jim said, the industrial system in the pink and the potable and the blue are completely separate, and the the data center uses a very small portion of that industrial, and it and regardless of what that industrial system uses, it's not going to impact our uh potable water supplies or the or the big hole molten or uh basin creek uh water sources.

So now what I wanted to do is understand how much water does a data center use, and how much water does a data center in Butte, Montana use.

Okay.

So uh what I've shown here is the um cooling system design that's being considered.

Now this is not this is not a SABI data center's diagram.

This is one I produced based on the uh proposed design, which is a closed loop adiabatic system.

And these systems are designed to minimize water use and to eliminate discharge.

So one of the questions was how much water are we going to discharge and temperature and all that?

So this design is designed with zero discharge.

So let's walk through how this proposed system uh how these systems do work.

And so there's a on the right-hand side of the diagram of the data center, you'll see a coolant loop, a closed loop coolant.

So that um fluid goes through the servers to cool them off.

The fluid gets heated up, loops back down through a heat exchanger, and then the heat is pulled out of that fluid loop, the the coolant loop, into what I'm calling the facility water closed loop, and that heat is transferred out to the adiabatic cooling tower.

Okay, and the adiabatic cooling to tower is basically a radiator, and as long as the outside air temperature is below 80 degrees Fahrenheit, it's air-cooled.

So in Montana, in Butte, Montana, for the vast majority of the time, it's air-cooled and there's no additional water.

Now, on days when the water temp or the air up the ambient air temperature is above eighty, they turn on the misters, which is shown then as the little shower in the middle of the diagram.

They'll spray water on those radiators to improve the heat transfer and the cooling.

And again, this only happens when the temperature outside air temperature is above eighty degrees.

So this is how you significantly reduce the water consumption in a data center.

You heard you've heard numbers like three million or two million gallons a day, which would be half of the butte potable water system, but since the outside air temperature is so cold, they rarely have to turn those those uh misters on.

So that's really how they save the water.

The other benefit of this system is because you're using so little water and it evaporates, there's no discharge.

So that's the general concept then behind this data center on how it would minimize water use.

Um work well within the capacity of the industrial water system and have zero impact on the potable water supply while also having no emission uh wastewater emissions.

So anyway, so this is how these generic systems work, and uh um uh and with conversations with Sabian, I know they've got some information they've shared with with the uh design concept, it's consistent with the information that I've shared here.

So that concludes the the investigation I've completed so far, and um we'll go ahead and wrap up our um presentation and perhaps turn it over to any questions from the from the committee here.

Thanks you guys.

That was uh very educational.

Um being native.

I've always heard about the Silver Lake water system, but didn't know the details until you guys shared that.

So thanks for all that level of effort, tons of work that went into that.

Um yeah, uh what we'll do as as uh I'll go around and see um if anybody in the committee has questions, and then we can have discussion.

There I don't think you need to get back to the podium for the discussion.

I think we just talked from here so you guys know how to work the mics.

So, yes, ma'am, you got a question there.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, my question is for Mr.

Morris.

What is the anticipated evaporation um associated with the water spray to cool in coming year?

Uh so um chairman and um committee member Julia, the anticipated use of the or the evaporation is that 44,000 gallons per day average uh Mr.

Morse, on that.

Um the Mr.

The water is gonna be pure water, no uh chemical added?

Is that correct?

Those are questions I uh I don't know.

I think we'll have to defer that to SABI.

I um haven't completed that part of the analysis.

Yeah, we'll have to have that as an action.

Generally, the information I found is the it is treated water.

So on the sprayed on them?

Correct.

Okay.

We'll have to have that as an action to double check with them.

Deb a question.

Todd.

Yes, sir.

So I'm I'm a little confused about the the no discharge.

I want to make sure, because I heard you say it at the end of your talk, Bob, that we have I guess maybe no I mean there obviously there's got to be discharge.

If we're bringing in 44,000 gallons a day, it's got to go somewhere.

So there's discharge, but uh I I guess if you could be a little bit more clear on you know where is it going?

It's it it's evaporated and goes into the atmosphere.

Just off of the cooling towers?

Correct.

Okay, thank you.

So do we expect cooling towers several of them locally around the building, or how do we know yet?

We don't know that maybe.

Yeah, you'll typically see a bank banks of these.

I just drew a cross uh cross section of one.

So you'll see a bank of cooling towers.

Um maybe just a quick question for Mr.

Keenan.

That was a great summary of the system.

Um at least from what I observed, it seems like the lowest level that I've ever seen in Silver Lake was this past fall.

Can you explain if that has any anything that we need to be considering here today, or if that was just seasonality, warm springs?

Sure, Mr.

Chairman.

Mr.

Dirk, in this past summer from July 10th through, well, I think it was 49 days total, we discharged 20 million gallons a day for fish habitat from Silver Lake.

So it's probably about the same as it was the last time we did it in 2021.

So and we didn't have any trouble recovering and filling up the lake the following year.

So we've done those discharges in the almost 16 years that I've been around, um, 2017, 2019, 2021, and 2025.

So I think that none of us are used to seeing the lake that low because you know the there's there's no smelter there anymore, and and uh but I imagine once upon a time it was probably common to see the lake at that level and uh and then it'd recover the lake in the spring.

So we're about 4400 acre feet from full right now, but we'll be able to start filling it in May, and I I think we'll fill it in 20 days, something like that.

So you bet uh thank you.

Um Mr.

Chairman, um Jim Keenan and everyone on the committee.

Um I had a question about that.

So um I think you said this in your presentation, but um we could serve as new industrial users off of this line without drawing down our storage rights technically out of Silver Lake.

Did I understand that correctly?

Mr.

Chairman, Director Burns, yeah.

I mean, even in those years of higher consumption from 2013, 2015, whatever it was on my slide, we didn't need to draw any water out of our storage in Storm Lake or Silver Lake to meet the needs of those users.

So if we're talking 40 some thousand gallons a day, I don't anticipate that that would require that we take any water out of our storage.

Thank you.

Mr.

Keenan, can you comment on the impact to Georgetown Lake water level?

Because I've had a lot of people ask me questions.

I get I'm getting bombarded with emails and and questions, so I get uh people concerned about recreation on Georgetown Lake, and so if you could comment on that, I appreciate it.

Sure, Mr.

Chairman.

We're only allowed to put water into Georgetown Lake in the spring.

If we fill up Silver Lake, we can put the excess water and then we'd only be allowed to remove it between October and March.

Now that's not something that we've had to do under current scenarios, and I don't think that this user would make any difference.

I don't think we'd have to release water from storage at Storm Lake or Silver Lake for for this user, never mind Georgetown Lake.

So but if it got to the point someday where we had enough users to where we were utilizing that, I think it would possibly be a mutually beneficial um thing where we were putting water into the lake in the summertime when the when the when the recreation is happening and then maybe taking it out in the winter time, maybe if there's less water in the lake, the i fish ice fishing would be better or something.

So anyway, um yeah, it's underutilized at this point, so I have a couple questions and if nobody else.

Um again, I get hit.

Um what I guess to be so reboo, you guys have flow meters and all these lines.

So um Jim could probably answer it.

You have flow meters and lines.

Do you have an agreement in advance of you know a contractual agreement says we're gonna use X gallons per day or some X gallons per year?

And if they expand and grow over time, is that just something that you guys contractually meet on occasion and and and is it a I'd be kind of curious.

Even REC and MR, right?

Do you have probably have some sort of biannual reviews or I apologize?

I should have uh Mr.

Chair.

So we do have agreements will we we're obligated to to um supply Montana resources are also REC and the other users that have that are on the system.

Um and then also we uh we enter into agreements as we talk about Silver Lake, we enter interagreens with uh National Resource Damage Council on the release that we have for there along with Trot Unlimited.

That's where you saw that release, but that's under an agreement that we have, and we execute that as a needed on needed um basis, and we'll we'll enter into those agreements yearly to to help out.

As we've talked about in the past, we want to be good stewards of the water if the water is available, we want to help out where we can.

We want to make sure that we meet all of our obligations and and within the system that we have right now, we know that we can meet the obligations under the contracts that we have with the REC and um all the other users on there, Dave Gates and and Montana resources that are along that line.

And Jim, I don't know if you have anything to add to that.

Uh Mr.

Chairman, Mr.

Chief Executive, I don't think I I have anything to add to that.

I guess I should have said when I got the question about Silver Lake that those are not necessarily agreements that we're obligated to hold, you know, we we do that when we can and when they approach us, but there's no contract that says that we have to release all that water from Silver Lake.

So uh comment.

Um I've had again they get emailed like crazy.

Why we don't release the water that's coming out of the MR that's going out by the chamber, right?

And so my response has been it's fairly obvious we have a pipeline and a system set up for the industrial park.

The water I believe that is discharging to the Silbore Creek is gravity fed from the polishing plant over here on Park Street.

And so if you were to pump it all the way up and out, it just didn't make sense.

Okay.

Go ahead.

Mr.

Sherry.

Yeah, sorry.

Uh I I don't want to step on my boss here.

I'll go first though, but anyway, um, I actually talked to Montana Resources a week or so ago about that question and what's the potential to use.

I think uh Bob indicated to me that somebody had been indicated or asking about the potential to use Berkeley pit water.

And uh the gentleman I talked to at Montana Resources said they tried to do something like that in 2018 or 2019 when maybe they had a user that was interested in using Berkeley Pitt water and they they made an effort, they got a lot of pushback.

He said it would take an act of the legislature to actually be able to, you know, water rights is so complicated that my brain gets scrambled in a hurry, but changing the the beneficial use of that water and going through the whole change authorization process with DNRC would probably take years if it's even possible.

So it sounds like there's a lot of challenges associated with using that water for something else.

And they're using it in their process now, and it's uh it's resulted in less consumption off of our system.

So I think uh that's the best answer I have.

No, thank you.

I appreciate that.

I again I sometimes I just want to bring those to light.

Uh to me it makes sense, right?

They're doing about three million gallons a day, I believe, to Silver Creek, someone in that range.

Um Mr.

Chair, that that's correct.

Generally they do, and sometimes they they'll uh they'll cut that back depending on temperature constraints as a releasing because it affects the the stream flows and into um you know the black tail creek and and going into that.

So the it generally is about three million gallons, but it can vary, especially during warm periods.

Last comment that I'm gonna have on the system.

Um and again, based on everything I've seen and and know about it's uh it's painfully obvious, and I don't want to do this to you, but I will.

But there is no likelihood, no chance of a situation occurring like we had last fall with MR and and put and uh But water versus processed water.

Uh that's not a connection in this system, it's not even possible.

So just it's more of a comment than a than a question.

Uh if you disagree, you can comment.

But other than that, um it they're not they're not tied together.

But if you want to comment, Jim.

Sure, Mr.

Chairman.

Um Butte Silver Bow, I think you'll be hearing more about it in the near future is kicking off a cross connection control program to prevent something like that from ever happening again.

So I think that maybe the chief executive might have more to say about that.

But um any connections between the Silver Lake water system and the potable water system, and I don't know why there would be one, maybe for redundancy or something like that, would have to follow all the requirements of Beatsilver Bow's cross connection control bar program.

Mr.

Chair, yeah.

Uh as uh as Mr.

Keenan alluded to, we are working on a cross-connect program that we'll we'll uh be addressing that, especially with our commercial industrial users and and also with residential users in in the community working with the DEQ on that.

But yeah, there would be no chance for this, and especially because the Silver Lake system that with the water would be used for the cooling system, there would be no connection to the potable water system that would ever uh have that risk of ever happening.

Any uh yes uh please, Mr.

McLean.

Yeah, Mr.

Chairman, um I have a question for uh for Jim.

So what would help me understand the proposed water usage is a comparison of some other t type of business and their water usage.

So I think I understand that if a data center if this particular data center with this particular system were to come here, the increase on our water usage would be something like 0.04 percent of an increase.

And on this slide that shows the total pipe average daily water use, it says that the last bullet point says that 4.5% of the of the total water usage is made up of others like cemeteries.

I don't know what CMP stands for.

But but I'm wondering if could you compare a 0.04 percent increase to some other type of business that uses around 0.04 percent of do you see what I'm saying?

Like if is this like adding a cemetery?

Is this like adding uh uh you know a mine?

Is this like adding a grocery store?

You know uh that that's kind of my question for you.

Mr.

Chairman, Mr.

McLean, I'm trying to think of a good example.

It would be more than a more than a cemetery and the CMP was Copper Mountain Park, for example, as far as clarifying what that was.

But like the cemetery that we do supply water to the Silver Lake um water system from the Silver Lake water system, I think is around 20 to 30,000 gallons a month.

So um and what was the total Bob said for for the year, 12 million gallons per year, I think on his slide.

So Jim is 16 about 16 million gallons a year for the data center.

Okay.

Because that's 4.5%.

So if we're saying 2.5 million times 0.045, that's 112,500.

That doesn't seem right.

But it would be a very similar user to what um the Dave Gates power plant is using on saying.

So I don't know if I answered your question correctly or not, though.

I think uh Ms.

Burns may have a comment.

I I just have a comment.

I think that on one of the slides that Mr.

Morris maybe I'll ask you for clarification and I think it will help answer the question.

I think that it equated the usage of SABE to like three small, three residential homes a year?

I did that what did I read that right?

Yeah.

Mr.

Chair and um committee member Burns, um I I put the garden hose on there at 14,500 gallons a day, which is which is a lot.

The data center is about three garden hoses.

And and that would be three garden hoses on 24-7, but but that's the that's the equivalent, three garden hoses on all the time.

Correct.

I guess one of the reasons I'm asking the question is this the I think the council of commissioners will be you know deciding whether to support this kind of proposal or not.

And the the real question is what kind of business should go into this space in the industrial park?

And and um if water is an issue, you know, are we limiting the uh I don't think this is a question for this group to answer, but the question in my head becomes, you know, are are we encouraging or limiting or um you know businesses to come here based on water usage?

Well, if if if we're gonna consider water usage, what types of businesses would would come what how much water would a business use?

You know, and and uh if it's three garden hoses, that's one answer.

If it's six garden hoses, that's another answer, you know.

And I I uh I guess that's just the the nature of the question.

Yeah, Mr.

McLean, uh it's a great question.

And and the question I think where you're headed to is if another chemical plant was coming similar to REC and was going to use ten percent of this water usage capacity, would that be you know, is is that gonna be a concern?

Somebody can say, oh wait a minute, it's what you using too much water.

So I guess that's exactly right.

Is that where you're have we already have we have we already approved and I don't know the answer to this, I'm you know new to town, but have we already approved businesses in the industrial park that are using more water?

And I I don't know the answer to that.

Do you do who would know that?

Yeah.

You know.

Um Mr.

Chairman, uh yeah, I mean REC uses a lot more water than that.

They use about a million gallons a day.

So um just there are that uh if that's your question, if there's an existing business in that park that's using that kind of water.

Mr.

Keene, I think the maybe the question would be what was the last business that came in out there that took water?

David Gates.

Would be the data gates plant?

Is that the most recent?

No, there's more recent than that, and they're pretty small users.

I probably have their allocation agreement in my little binder here, but I think it was probably like oh Karen can tell us on uh Mr.

Chairman Spurns, you probably know this off the top of your head.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I don't know the exact usage amounts of these businesses, but um Montana Precision Products is a user.

Um Mountana Kraft malt is a user.

Um I'm trying to think of the others that actually use the water in their process.

Ergon, um I don't believe so, just for fire suppression, possibly.

Any water being used by RP at this time, do you know for um part of their cleanup at all or or keeping their ponds full?

Not that I know of.

Okay.

Jim, Mr.

Keenan, you have the uh Mr.

Chairman, I just I just wanted to give a couple of examples here as far as the allocation agreements for Montana Craft Malt is 0.045 million gallons per day of Western State's asphalt is 0.145 million gallons per day.

Um so those are just a couple of examples of users out there that are more recent in what their allocation is.

Sorry, I didn't have my mic on.

My my question in part has been already answered.

Um I guess do we have any other companies?

It sounds like we have similar use or more use, water intensive use companies.

Do we have any other companies that cause the water to leave the water basin, you know, and not recharge locally?

And and is this estimation for the first phase and does it get multiplied by five as the phases get built out.

Sorry.

Well you let you answer.

Okay, uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman, and um Miss Burden.

So the numbers I calculated are for the full build out, so it's a hundred and two hundred up to a hundred megawatt facility.

And um, Mr.

Chair and Ms.

Burdoon, uh the retention in the basin.

I don't think any any of our consumers utilize anything that we have in retention in in storm or in in Silver Lake, so that that doesn't have an impact on to that currently.

And the other one thing I think that to bring to mind is that the any business that we bring on that we'd have to unless we extend it Silver Lake somehow someplace, we're we're limited to the industrial park or on the line that goes to Montana resources.

It isn't like we have the ability to put other users on the Silver Lake line that are in different areas of our community unless we have an uh quite an expansion of where that Silver Lake system goes.

Yes, ma'am.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chair.

Um Sarah, I can you call it can you clarify what you mean by leave the basin?

Are you talking about evaporation?

Yeah, and I I might be scientifically inaccurate in this as a layperson.

However, uh what I'm imagining is that there's the evaporative cooling of three garden hoses on average per day.

And um that goes up into the atmosphere.

Um I assume it forms clouds and it goes elsewhere.

Um probably outside the basin, I I imagine.

But you know, I don't know who would weigh in on that.

But um do we have any other users that cause water to leave um the basin, you know, because groundwater recharges from snow in the mountains.

Um we are using a system that is I I mean I imagine snow fed if we're using creek water.

And so um it doesn't sound like a lot of water, but I'm just wondering what the impact is of water leaving the area over time.

Um what's the recharge?

I I don't imagine anyone can really answer that right now, but um, if if there are more and more data centers um and there is more evaporative cooling, um, does that become a pinch point at some point?

Um plus there's a lot more development happening through anaconda and et cetera, through um building um, et cetera.

That um I I'm not sure if we have a really great grasp on rights versus actual recharging capacity of our water basis basin, and do we have a study of that?

Mr.

Chair, I I would like to say that the where the water is coming from does not come from the basin in Montana resources or Montana Connections Park.

That water is out of the pantlers, it recharges down through theirs.

So when you talk about it, it should have no effect on the basin that people draw from, as I know there were questions about that out at Buxton.

What will this do to our wells?

There'll be no effect to the to the actual groundwater that happens within that area where this where this data center is going to be.

Um has there been a study?

We haven't done a study about what that recharge could be, about what removing it from from Silver Lake area in the basin that you're talking about, and how what are the impacts into the area that we're taking it to in that evaporative?

We haven't done that.

Quick comment on um kind of towards you what you're asking to use REC as an example, right?

They have a cooling tower.

You've seen the steam coming off the cooling tower.

So when those all those reactors run hot, the cooling tower comes in, they use uh Silver Lake water system for cooling on the outside of that cooling tower.

And that's the steam you're seeing when it when it comes off the cooling tower.

The cooling tower ends up uh blowing down to mix with their other processed water, and it discharges down sheep's gulch.

Um so it's above ground permit, water permit.

You probably get some saturation into the ground at that time, but it does hit down to the uh RP property line where it goes into a concrete um canal and it goes up through the RP property until it comes out of the other side of the RP and drops into Silver Boat Creek.

Okay.

So I don't know that they I know they measure the the water discharge on a daily basis, they sample out water daily because they have a permit for, but I don't know what the numbers are to know to compare the numbers of Silver Lake coming in and how much is going back out, but it's it's probably fairly close balance.

You do get some evaporation, but I think what we can look at as a committee is historic use, and if we're nowhere near, you know, we we do have recent memory of what's happened when we pulled X number of gallons out, um and from a watershed perspective, um, you know, you would have to look the ultimate impact is gonna be to the Clark Fork River.

That's where all these drainages eventually end up.

And so, I mean, you could go back and look at historic data of what happened when we were pulling at that capacity to the Clark Fork, because ultimately, you know, everything goes downstream.

We're on this side of the divide.

Everything's gonna impact the Clark Fork, and we we do have historic data to show, hey, here's what's happening in 2013, right?

When we were pulling a lot more, and if we're only pulling 16 million gallons a year, I mean we have pretty good information to know that does not account for drought years that could be potentially coming down the road.

I mean, we we can't say what's gonna happen in the future, but we can look to the past and how much we were we were pulling at those times.

Thank you, Ms.

Lappin.

Quick question.

Comment towards you, Johnny, uh question towards you.

Todd.

The park is designed out there as economic development.

So you bring it in this business, it's gonna have some water usage.

But you have another X g X acres to be used for economic development for attracting other businesses.

And so it goes into is some other business uh uh at what point do you get concerned about the water usage?

Because we're gonna try to do economic development as a collectively as a as a I look at you because you're the your position with the park.

Um so is as companies keep approaching, is there some place where these companies where we say who who we're gonna say, well boy, we don't have the water or you're using too much water or right?

I mean, this it's sound it it's gonna be like any of these other issues we have with housing and other things.

It's a evolving process of economic development attracting businesses, you have the property.

So, you know, if we're gonna be concerned about two percent water on this project, but some other company comes in and wants five million gallons a day.

What's it am I making sense?

You know where I'm headed with my question is it's is this is a an uh structure.

It's continuous revolving effort of economic development.

So I mean, for most of 30 years, we've been following the same type of process, the same process that we're vetting the data center process on, and so every single uh developer that comes before uh the economic development group and then ultimately to the Montana Connections Board will have to present, and we then have to vet.

And so therefore and part of the vetting, I mean, obviously Butte Silverboat does have this is our resource, and so it'll be our responsibility to understand their demands and our supply to understand whether or not those meet those needs can be met on an as you know as needed basis.

Can we project who's gonna come before us and what their water usage is gonna be in the future?

Obviously, we can't.

So I mean, economic development is one of the nature of an economic development, which is you know, bird in hand.

You gotta you gotta move forward with who's in front of you and vet what's there in front of you, and then I guess in other words, the short answer is we will vet in each individual project as it comes before us to include its demand on our water system.

Thank you.

Karen, did you have a comment?

So you he got it?

Um, Miss Lappin.

Um I'll just kind of chime into what Todd said, or sorry, Mr.

Chair, Todd.

Um you know, from an economic development perspective, let's just pretend I have a request from the state or from another company sitting on my desk.

Um if they're asking, you know, for three million gallons a day or 15 million gallons a day, my first call is going to be to Jim.

A, can we serve it?

B, you know, there are so many other factors that go into economic development.

How many jobs are we talking about?

What how much land are we talking?

How much electricity are we talking?

Before we bring those things even to a board like Montana Connections, you know, we're talking with BLDC or the Chamber.

Is this a fit for our community?

These are the conversations that are sort of had before we sort of bring it into larger consideration for these committees.

And so to the question at what point is too much too much.

I mean, let's just pretend we don't care about the environment or Silver Lake.

I mean, uh A, the capacity of the system is the capacity of the system.

We can't overtake it.

We can't overdo our water rights.

We're not going to do that.

Um B, we do have those full water rights, so it's up to us, you know, to sort of vet all of that.

Um from an economic development perspective, you know, we're not just sitting here like, yeah, let's go the system full bore.

We're there are so many other factors beyond the water that we take into consideration of whether a project is going to be a good fit for this committee.

Oh, thank you for that.

I it makes sense to me.

I just wanted to you know have the discussion.

Um we're pressed against five o'clock.

I know we've got some people that may have some hard stops shortly, so if you have to go, we'll probably try to wrap up here.

Um this this conversation has gone long, it's been excellent.

I want to thank you, Bob, Mr.

Keenan, Mr.

Morris, thank you for that um very educational um presentation, uh especially for those guys who aren't from Butte, it's good to see that you uh you you paid attention.

That's awesome.

Um we may not have time to keep going through some of these topics unless I don't want you guys all think.

It's not up to me.

It's up to the team.

But we were we were going to discuss quickly, we were going to discuss briefly what we might know on um uh discharge.

Um but hang on one second, Ms.

Thatcher.

Uh thank you, Mr.

Chairman.

I I recognize that time is valuable for everybody, um including the audience.

However, I feel like if most of us can stay and continue this conversation, the public is here.

We I understand that um Chief Executive Gallagher has another big meeting tonight, and I'm sure many of you have other obligations, but if if it would be okay, I would like to maybe continue pressing on.

We're kind of cutting it close here on our overall timeline.

And so if it would be okay with the rest of the committee to keep pushing on, um I would appreciate that.

But that's I guess up for everybody else too.

Thanks.

I think that works.

Um we were going to discuss discharge, and I know as I've asked Sarah to um look into it and with you know bouncing between uh uh Metro sewer folks, Jim and Bob.

Um I'm sorry.

So yeah, so how how do we want to present and discuss what we know so far?

We may not know everything, um, but there's some key points I think that you and I have talked about.

So if you want to share what you have, does that work?

Sure, sure.

So um this is without having actually talked to SAB data center representatives, however, having talked to Bob Morris um and his you know, his state of conversations and um presentation um that they have said to him that there would not be discharge that is of treated water to the metro sewer system.

However, uh it it's a a workplace, so there would be kitchens, bathrooms, um drinkable water supplied to the building for for people.

Um so there would need to be uh county uh permitting system and then eventual discharge into Silver Lake of the utility, not not utility, the typical use water, we'll we'll put it that way.

The typical use water of like an office building.

Um but again, this is I have not had direct conversation with SABE to understand that um they are not intending to apply for any other permitting for Metro sewer.

This is sort of the assumption that we've come to.

So I hand it over back to you, Brian.

So the conversation you and I have had it, and if we need to um pull up a couple metro folks, but you you're not gonna tie into this um there's a metro sewer line that runs out to the park.

It's just we don't have slides to to show we can get something later, but so everybody knows there's a there's a metro line that's out there.

So many of those the existing facilities out there like uh Montana Precision, Montana Craft Malt, et cetera, are tied to that metro line, I'll call it.

Yes, all of the businesses in the park um are tied to the wastewater line.

With the exception of with the exception of REC.

And so if a new company is going to come in again this is economic development comment as a whole if a new company comes in so SABI comes in and they need to connect their um their kitchens and bathrooms and things to a metro sewer line I guess the question is is what's the permitting process for that.

What's the sampling process to to ensure that they're not sending um any kind of industrial water down the line without knowledge right so that I think that I I know we didn't have much and and and I appreciate you Sarah for looking into this a ton um but these have been combined in my questions and I think there's a to educate everybody is what's the process to connect.

Mr.

Chair I'd like to bring up our metro sewer personnel that deal with this we we have passed an ordinance about discharge and exceedances and program that that allows for that but I would like to to have our public works metro sewer personnel to come up and kind of talk about that we have Eric Gonder who who talks about who kind of goes out and and um and monitors discharge from our different commercial industrial sites to make sure that they're not exceeding standards within Butt Silverbow and so we have all of those parameters really in and we've we've codified that in ordinance so if I could there you go you had it one more time there you go you got it.

Thank you.

I'm Eric Ander I'm the pre-treatment coordinator for Butler Bow.

We do have limits and levels on discharge I know in the presentation today they said they probably would not have industrial discharge but we would probably still require them to separate their sanitary line from their industrial line in case they did and that's how we do our sampling is off their you know industrial line and stuff because we don't want it mixed you know eventually it would come together before enters the collection system but they would have to separate the you know like their bathrooms and and kitchen wastewater from industrial wastewater if they did have any we would require regular like our other industrial users we require regular sampling those samples get sent to energy labs you know in Billings or Helena or any other accredited lab and um that's the data we use if they were to come here I guess the only thing we could do is take data from a comparable source you know one of their other um data you know centers to you know get the information we need they would have to fill out a uh industrial waste survey you know that gives us a lot of information on what's suspected present in their wastewater what isn't um but they would not be able to discharge industrial waste without a a permit um sanitary waste you know would be accepted but industrial waste would not be allowed without a discharge permit so to connect to the metro line butte Silverbow does the construction on that to some point to a tie in point for the business is that true no the the contractor would do that we would just probably uh verify the tap certify the tap when they tap into the gravity line that goes to our lift station do you have a continuous flow in that line just for Kerry do you know no it it pumps in intervals it's a pretty good size what it can pump up to about 950 gallons a minute okay my name is Bill Andrini I run the wastewater treatment plan.

Yeah thank you Bill question uh Mr.

Morse uh thank you Mr.

Chair I um not a question but I have a uh statement that was uh sent by SABI data centers to uh to me and to um committee member uh Ms Burns and if it's okay it'll probably take me about five minutes to read through it but it does address their strategy for water use and wastewater so if it's okay I'll I'll proceed.

The facility uses a closed loop liquid cooling system for IT equipment and rejects heat primarily through dry air heat exchangers.

Water is not used in a continuous cooling medium.

During limited hot periods, the system may use adiabatic spray misting to improve air cooler performance.

This adiabatic mode is enabled only above a defined temperature threshold, 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and is designed as a once-through mist system without a continuously recirculating evaporative basin.

This approach reduces the need for routine purge slash blowdown and reduces biological and scaling risks that can increase water use and chemical treatment requirements.

To further reduce water impacts, the project includes a covered thermal storage that serves two purposes.

One, buffering thermal loads, and two, providing reliable on-site water reserve to support short duration adiabatic operations during temporary supply interruptions.

The tank is covered to minimize evaporation and protect water quality.

In normal operation, routine adiabatic drop drain down and any intermittent purge slash blowdown are routed back to the covered thermal storage tank for reuse as a source water for subsequent adiabatic events, further reducing net withdrawals and minimizing routine discharges.

Any adiabatic related drains, such as brief drain down during shutdown for freeze protection or periodic filtration or line flushes are captured and managed, not discharged on uncontrolled.

The project's discharge approach is based on segregation and monitoring.

Routine low-risk moderate streams are routed to an equalization holding volume and monitored for flow pH connectivity or excuse me, conductivity and turbidity prior to any release.

If monitoring indicates off-normal conditions, water can be held and managed appropriately rather than discharged.

Any infrequent maintenance waters that could contain cleaning chemicals are segregated and directed to appropriate handling pathways.

Example, municipal treatment or off-site disposal rather than discharge to surface water.

Overall, the cooling strategy is intentionally dry first and water smart.

It limits adiabatic water use to the hottest conditions, avoids continuous evaporated basins, and incorporates capture and monitoring safeguards to ensure that any discharge is controlled and compliant with applicable permits and water quality standards.

That's the end of the statement.

Thank you, uh Chairman Sullivan.

Mr.

Morris, I was gonna call you Bob, but just for everybody in the room, could you tell us what adiabatic means?

Because that was used quite a bit, and I think that like I said, we got to get this down to the terms that all of us are are comfortable with and are aware of.

So thank you.

Thank you, committee member Thatcher.

So adiabatic is evaporative heating.

So basically it's a equivalent of a swamp cooler.

Ms.

Thatcher, I appreciate that comment.

And and if there's ways that we need to clarify for the for the final delivery, um we'll have you help us with that and make sure we're not saying something that nobody understands.

Any questions, comments, you guys on on what Mr.

Morris read?

That was a lot there, Bob will probably trans probably submit it for record and get it out there.

Ums Morduan.

Um yeah, I do remember, Bob, in our back and forth in our emails that you did say that SAIB would have some water that it would need to treat off-site.

And I guess that so far um I haven't heard details about where or and how much.

Um is it a third-party treatment?

Do you know any details on that?

Uh Mr.

Chair and uh committee member Burduin, Ms.

Burden.

Um, I've asked those questions of of SAIB, and I I don't have answers yet, so but but uh as far as what's the chemical composition, the volume and location, um, those are still questions we're we're asking asking, so thank you.

Yes, ma'am.

Mr.

Chairman, um I was wondering if um our scribe, McKenzie, could you tell us who's online?

Because I do believe there are members from SABE participating in this meeting through teams, and they may be able to address that question right now.

Okay, they may be able to address that then.

Sure.

Okay.

Okay.

You guys can try and talk.

Can you hear?

Can you guys hear that?

Test test.

It might be a little quiet, but it looks like you turn it off.

That will be vendor specific, and we are not at the point at the current time where we have all the detailed engineering and final design for which vendor and which particular piece of equipment we're using.

We have the overall concept that we've shared.

When we get that information, we're happy to share.

In general, with these wild type detergents and stuff, you collect all the water from the cleaning operation, and we send it off to a chemical treatment facility that handles it separately.

It is not discharged in any of the surface water or anything like that.

Did that answer your question?

I believe that answers that answer the question.

I quick question I have for you, sir, is um how often do you do you get into a routine maintenance once a year, twice a year where you have to go through some type of blowdown and and discharge water, uh ship it off-site.

Uh we'll have to get with the individual vendors for cleaning, but generally you're here on board, you usually clean it once or twice a year.

And you collect all the water, nothing is discharged.

Thank you.

Any other questions for any any any questions on discharge at all?

Or do we can we move because the next item is SAB update?

So um it's a little difficult to hear, but we can try it again if there's anything that they would want to share.

I don't know if we had a really specific intent of what they would do, but if they had anything further from um what they heard today and last week, with if if there would be any anything that you folks from SABE would like to share with us.

Matt, Maria, is there anything you guys want to share?

Sorry, I'm just having some trouble getting off mute.

Uh no, just thank you for uh spending time on this today and allowing us the forum to uh to provide answers.

And as always, if the committee has questions or if there's any other additional information that we could provide at this stage, please feel free to reach out and let us know.

Uh thank you.

Well one thing uh I just wanted to say is that uh we appreciate when different members of this committee reach out to you for questions that you guys are responsive and get back to us.

That's it helps us keep moving forward, it helps you folks as well.

So um just want to make that comment and say thank you for helping out.

Thank you, Chairman Sullivan.

Um I'm curious if maybe um one of the people more with more expertise in this, certainly not me, could just relay what SABE just said because it was difficult to hear, and so maybe if members of the public didn't exactly hear what they had to say, maybe we can just touch on that a little bit to kind of relay that message in a in a different way.

Thank you.

I can take a stab at it and other people can jump in if they if they would.

Um I do believe um what they reiterated was that um if they do um what they call a blowdown or a cleaning of that I can't pronounce that word either, Hattie, the cooling system.

Um that that happens maybe once or twice a year when they do that, and they use um I I wrote down mild detergents or solvents in that process, and when they do that, they do truck that water off site.

Um they don't discharge it into a wastewater line or surface.

Um, and I believe that's what they reiterated.

Someone correct me if I missed something.

McKenzie.

McKenzie.

Correction.

No, no solvent detergent.

Don't use solvent detergent.

Thank you.

Yes, McKenzie.

I also want to put on here that Rob Corbin in the chat said that their sanitary water system for employees is completely isolated from the cooling system that they use for their IT equipment.

Thank you.

And go on to that topic.

I'm making the assumption they're planning on tying into the metro line, they're not going to have a septic system.

Is that a fair statement?

They're required to tire into the metro line.

They are.

Thank you.

Any uh any further questions, comments from Save.

Do they have any anything any folks you have anything else for SABE?

Um old business.

There's uh the new tariff load, large load tariff.

Is that you, Mr.

Morris?

Oh Mr.

Bapp, sorry.

Mr.

Mr.

Chairman, just wanted to, in the spirit of what we're trying to do here with the concerns from the public.

One of the major concerns is making sure that the customer is that they are protected from any large customer connecting to the system.

And then what I've handed out, and there is copies for everybody that if they need to grab it in the back.

I tried to get as many for the for the public.

But just to back up a little bit, so we talked about at our second meeting that if a large load is going to connect, that customer is responsible for anything that it takes to connect, and that would be their transmission upgrades, the substation, and distribution.

That's on the customer, not only data centers, but any large uh any large load.

I also talked about the energy that we've acquired for zero dollars from Coal Strip.

So 222 megawatts of that is already it's already in use for our customers in Montana, so we're resource adequate.

And then the 370 megawatts that we acquired from Puget Sound Energy, that is being sold into the wholesale market right now, and that is something that is reinvested back into Cole Strip for OM.

So one of the questions that Commissioner Callahan had was could a large could another large customer look at benefiting from a large load tariff?

And the answer is yes.

And so though I'm not going to read through the large load tariff, but this is a statement from Northwestern Energy that what we're saying is we'd have to go through the regulatory process, and that's where you do not, that's where the customer is protected, you don't cost shift the energy from the large load customer to our other customers.

And so that would have to go through the regulatory uh process.

So I'll get this to McKenzie so that she has it with all of our data.

Want to make sure that the public has that.

Commissioner O'Leary is headed down that path already.

Um it's been reported through KXLF with the same statement that's here tonight, but I just want to make sure that everybody on our committee has that too.

And then Patty, you can relay that to the council of commissioners.

Thank you.

Uh thank you, uh, Mr.

Babb.

And uh Chairman Sullivan.

Actually, Commissioner O'Leary did um bring a communication to council that was read and acted upon last week.

And so um the Council of Commissioners did all vote unanimously to send a letter of support in essence, I suppose, um, in regard to the large load tariff to the PSC.

So we're we're the council has been vetted on on this.

Um yeah, that is about the statement I have on that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Thanks, Mr.

Bebb.

Questions?

Folks on the tariff.

Uh next item, the PJM versus the Montana electric market.

Mr.

Morris was going to comment on that as a comment that came up from our just previous discussions.

Uh thank thank you, Mr.

Chair.

So this is in response to a request from one of our meetings about three weeks ago to uh please look at the PJM market and uh and uh understand what's going on there and and are there the same similar issues in Montana?

So the report back was that the electric rates in PJM are being increasing because of data centers.

And so the question is will will Montana face the same problems?

And the short answer is no.

Montana's electric system is fundamentally different from PJM's, and the recent issues in PJM do not apply the same way to Montana.

So what's happening in PJM and PGM is the electricity grid that serves uh uh parts of the eastern United States and recent headlines about electricity prices increasing ten times refer to PJM's capacity market, not the everyday electricity market.

PGM's the electricity grid that serves uh uh parts of the eastern United States and recent headlines about electricity prices increasing ten times refer to PJM's capacity market, not the everyday electricity market.

Capacity payments are used to make sure enough power plants are available for future years to for peak demand.

The recent capacity auction cleared at unusually high prices, which may raise customer bills by about one and a half to five percent, depending on location.

So why did the prices increase?

Uh the number one uh cause is PJM has retired many coal plants in the past decades, about 30 gigawatts, and they've built considerable amounts of wind and solar generation to replace that energy, but these resources are not available always during peak demand.

Electricity demand has grown across all sectors, including homes, businesses, and industry, and data centers about 10 gigawatts.

And as a result, PJM now has less firm backup capacity while demand's grown.

So their demand has grown, but their capacity has gone down.

So is PJM stopping data centers?

No.

PGM has not requested a data center moratorium.

Instead, PJM and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, FERC, are working together to speed up interconnection approvals for both new power plants and large electric electricity users, including data centers, to improve reliability and support economic growth.

So how is Montana different?

We're structured different.

Montana does not use capacity markets like PJM.

Our electric rates are set through state regulation, not wholesale markets.

Utilities must plan for future demand through long-term plans reviewed and approved by the Montana Public Service Commission.

Regional availability is managed through the Western Resource Adequacy Program.

On reliability outlook, the National Reliability Authority, NERC, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, currently rates PJM area as elevated risk, while the Western power system, including Montana, is rated normal risk.

So the bottom line is that PJM's experience reflects challenges specific to their market structure and generation mix.

Montana's regulated planning process and Western grid structure make a similar outcome unlikely, and direct comparisons between PJM and Montana are not appropriate.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Morris.

Appreciate that very much.

Any questions, comments on what was just read.

Okay.

Moving on to the next item on our agenda.

Actions for next week.

I get assigned people tasks.

So thanks.

Shed some light.

I was getting tired up here.

We're gonna ready to go take a nap.

Ums Sereni, I've asked uh talk to you.

I'd like you to reach out to the your equivalent and the chamber of commerce in the Quincy area to find out if you could please what the chamber has stated over there, what they've experienced, and just a slide, uh, some bullets, whatever you whatever they're willing to share with you.

Uh member Miss Sullivan, you've already reached out to the equivalent of the BLDC in Quincy, and you got some feedback, so we'll we'll report on that next week.

Um just again, same thing.

It's what are they willing to share?

I think is is worth doing.

Um environmental impacts with regards to lighting and noise, I get a lot of questions and comments about how loud it is, how noisy it is, how bright it is.

Um I know we've had some information already.

It's just a matter of who do I assign it to?

I feel like you're gonna give me homework.

I'm looking your way.

Um problem.

But we have I know we have it, and I and I it may even come from folks from the chamber and the QLDC or whatever they call themselves, right?

Um I did reach out to member Tammy Burke and wells, Mr.

McLean.

Um with regards to the schools, you know, we we we tout that we've got these great schools.

I actually got an argument today that um the flagship schools aren't 80 miles one way and 120 the other way.

The Lake flagship university is right here, but I got outvoted.

Um but I've asked I've asked both of you if you could please, and I think you've already have commented and we'll we'll put it as slide, but um we tout that Butte is a great location because we're between two great universities and we have a great university and program here in Butte.

And so what does that mean for um how reactive can we be, or how proactive can we be?

What can you do to change curriculum, add curriculum?

What curriculum do you already have that would support jobs in Butte to support the data center and keep you know our graduates and our children here in Butte.

So I think that'll be a I I've already received some from you, so but we'll talk about that again next week.

Um any other actions for next week.

Mr.

Morris, do you have anything you can think of?

My favorites.

Nothing.

Okay.

Um so we are at 53.

Um we can do some public comments.

We're gonna do the timer, like they do here with and I'm gonna have I'm gonna ask Miss Thatcher to run it for me because I don't know what I'm doing.

Um but anyway, I I'll open it.

Maybe we'll go.

I don't know what you guys think uh timing-wise, who's got time ten fifteen minutes.

Um so you'll have I believe that's a three-minute timer.

Yes.

And so the idea is is if you could, if you have questions, um, you know, we can I'd ask you to step up the podium.

I'd ask you to state your name here uh and and if you have questions, if you don't um it it today's meeting, I think was extremely valuable with water.

We've had I think that the probably a couple of the biggest issues are water and power.

Um and they're all big issues.

If you go on to jobs, taxes, that kind of thing.

We've had all those discussions.

I think next our our goal as a team is we hit these things next week.

Um we need to prepare then to give something to the council the following week, I believe.

So we kind of have to hit it hard um next week to and I'll probably work with Kayla and McKenzie to put together a final uh slide deck.

See out looks, give it to you guys for review, comment, input.

Um Moose, Ms.

Don, Mr.

Patrice, you have a question, comment, please.

Uh uh more white cold.

My question is that uh water system uh you guys talk about there's plenty of water.

I understand all of that.

My question is that Satan's gonna be asking for an extension.

So if they how long is this extension?

And then you also talk about we're not allowing it on there's not gonna be you're not holding up any projects or other projects, and you've got to work through having new projects.

They continue to ask us for an extension.

How long have we been allowed to hold it possible?

Sorry for lack of a better term.

But how long are they gonna hold up on just being able to use obviously they're not using a lot of water, but down the line how much water, and then how many other businesses would we would we turn away from not because these people talked about this about this limited there?

How long do we allow this we want for the office for maybe long something?

Thank you, Mr.

Patrice.

We'll we've got a documented covered.

Yes, sir.

My name's Dan O'Neill.

Before you begin, if if as other as folks use that, go ahead and leave that microphone on.

Perfect.

Thank you.

I uh I'll try and limit it to three minutes.

I first of all I'm I want to support it.

I know a lot of people are here because of the water usage and maybe against it, but Mr.

Morris addressed a lot of what I I came to offer as a background for my support, and that is you know, what are some of the design things that we could do that might be alternative cooling options to water usage?

Um I got a an architecture degree at Arizona State, and it's ranked number one for sustainability, so I think the flagship school is Arizona State.

But we'll argue with you though.

The reality is is maybe uh what I came to question is is there options that tech uh could be involved with in terms of alternative cooling ways, geothermal cooling.

Um I'm sure they've already done all these kind of design studies, but maybe our region's a little bit different than Quincy, maybe our temperatures are cooler for a lot of years, probably 10 years.

And while I was in school at ASU, I I became friends with a kid whose uh father worked for TSMC, and they were bringing this new chip factory to Arizona, and I'm like, man, you you guys should be looking at Butte, Montana.

It's you know, it's not 120 degrees in the summer.

You know, so the idea that it's coming, put the potential to come here to me is is a positive.

We have cool weather.

They mentioned it that only a few days of the year it's gonna be above 80 degrees, so I think it's a natural.

I'll leave that at that.

Um, the other things um is that uh butte history has changed.

You know, I I think a lot of us realize that Butte used to run the state, there was the copper collar, and we've heard all that.

Um, but I I really that's not the case anymore.

Bozemans pulling the strings, or there's a lot of outside influence.

Um, and and we got to take what we can get.

This isn't, you know, we're telling the legislature what's gonna go on.

You know, I think if someone is up here saying we want a whorehouse here, we should take it.

Um trying to bring some comedy in laughing.

So mainly that that's it is that I think that we need to look to the future.

It may not be the best option, but I think it's a great option.

Um I'm fully for it.

I would say one thing on the slides that no one considers you guys are.

I think we should look at more of the water usage from all the new people that are gonna come here.

Come here and and uh bring some fresh blood to the town.

I think that's more of a concern than how we're gonna cool this place.

Can you repeat your can you tell me your name again?

I'm Dan O'Neill.

Thank you.

Thanks, Dan.

My name is Linda Trevena, 3475 St.

Ann.

Um because I know this isn't a QA time.

So I'm going to make a statement, and maybe some of the other people will agree.

My concern is why is Mr.

Morris putting together the presentation for SABE and using the words, I'm assuming this is from what I've read.

And why isn't SABI producing their own defined guaranteed diagram of what they intend?

Another thing I heard was there would be no discharge, and then in the meetings before there was discharge.

Then I hear now there's something kind of like a settling pond, and then a few minutes later in this meeting, I hear no, it's all going to be just stored up and put in trucks and hauled away.

My next question is when we asked before to a SABE executive directly, what are the plutons going to be?

Because I have read plenty of pollutants from plenty other data centers, and he had no answer and would have to research it.

First of all, when you're in that position, you should know what they are.

Second of all, you're saying it's just going to be detergent.

And if it's just detergent, why do you have to put it in a truck and haul it away?

Because that could be treated very easily.

So that's my comment.

Good morning.

Good afternoon.

My name's John Sorich, 1820 Wilson.

Um I think I'm glad to see such a great turnout.

I think people got a lot of concerns, and I think it's good to have these meetings to answer these concerns.

Um, you know, I think there's still some questions.

Not all the questions have been answered yet.

You know, one of the questions I I'm just gonna bring up.

First off, does Beats over Bowl got to guarantee so much water to save me?

I guess maybe I missed it.

Is there for future growth?

Is there gonna have to guarantee X amount of water for a certain time?

Okay, and then my next question is I'm reading on this uh print or on this diagram, it says something about water uses above 80 degrees, but then the woman says outside air of 80 degrees.

That could change the water consumption.

You know, is it outside air?

Evaporative cooling, you know all has to do with outside air temperature.

Obviously, the cooler it is outside, the lower the water temperature.

So is it 80 degree inside air or outside air or 80 degree uh water temperature?

Those are my comments.

Thank you.

Thanks again.

Thank you.

Hi, uh my name is Stuart Parker.

Um I work at the Bureau of Mines and Geology, and I just wanted to make sort of a comment on something that came up last week.

Um Mr.

Morris mentioned the possibility of the Bureau being able to be involved with the SABE data centers in regards to geothermal energy.

Um we are not consultants.

Our mission is to disseminate information to the public.

Uh we can't take money from companies.

So my understanding is talking to my colleagues that we are not in communication with them, we're not in a position to be in communication with them.

Um anybody is free to use our information.

We are looking at the possibility of geothermal energy in the state in the Deer Lodge Valley is one of our key focus areas.

Um, but we're not in the role to communicate with businesses directly.

Thank you.

Thank you for that clarification.

Appreciate it.

Mr.

Chairman, members of the committee, my name is John Moodry.

I'm here tonight representing my high conservation district, and I live at 3005 Richardson.

Uh we just have one comment to make, and if we're gonna have, and this is more to the two points that were made about the entire basin.

If we are gonna have users, consumptive users come into the basin.

The only way to mitigate that consumption is to have additional storage with in the headwaters so that the water stays here longer and it doesn't just flow away from us.

We do not oppose the uh development, but we do wholeheartedly agree that the development of more storage in the basin is needed, and as we bring in more users, and I'm sure Mr.

Keene agrees with me, he's dealing with a very old system uh to distribute this water that needs to be updated, and his storage system needs to be updated.

Thank you.

Thank you, John.

Brian, uh members of the committee, Evan Barrett, uh live on the 800 block of Silver Street.

Um I want to make a little bit of a comment about how we look at this thing.

We're looking at the details on it right now.

Uh and again, I've always been intrigued by the idea of the advanced technology, although I'm not really in love with it as a way of us uh dealing with things as a nation.

Uh but uh as we evaluate what we're going to be doing, it's very important to think of our assets and how long our assets will play out.

Uh the park out there is the best, absolutely the best, highest quality industrial development land in Montana.

It's got two railroads, it's got two interstates, it's got all the infrastructure that we've invested in to this point.

What is it, a hundred million more or more?

We put 42 million in the first thing for REC ASMI at the time.

And uh we're going to continue to do that.

So this is very, very valuable land.

And what is the product we're looking for?

Well, really, the citizens aren't looking for more taxes per se, mostly jobs.

So I just want to mention in a comparison.

When we brought ASMI in here, uh REC, uh, we sold them 243 acres.

And that brought in about 300 jobs.

Direct jobs, not secondary jobs.

Okay.

What we have now is a lot of vagueness about the jobs.

Is it 20?

Is it 30?

Is it 50?

Some people say 200, but that's not direct jobs.

We need a specific answers from SABE.

What are your direct jobs?

We're not going to count the multipliers.

That may come or may not come, depending upon the success of their business operation.

So, what do they bring in on their own?

And you need, as a committee, to put their feet to the fire upon on the direct jobs, because if we're going to use 606 acres to get 50 direct jobs, and then think about the REC and 300 direct jobs for 240 acres.

We need to be thinking about the long-term development of Butte and that park out there, and jobs is one of our primary measurements.

So let's play it straight with the people of Montana or people of Butte and not give them numbers that we want to kind of sweeten it up more than it is.

Let's be real about the numbers.

What are direct jobs and what are secondary jobs and attached jobs?

Thank you very much.

Thanks, Evan.

Uh my name is Tanya Gardy, and my address is 1550 Waterline Road.

And um I had a concern we I've been to the last few of these meetings, and you talked about the um property taxes, about you know how that was gonna be revenue for Butte Silverbow, and that you know the data centers in Montana will be charged at a point nine percent rate.

Um I'm just curious.

I mean, do you guys know what the residential residential rates are for residential homeowners who occupy their primary residence?

I mean, it's it's almost da Sabu data centers will pay almost half of what we pay in our own community.

So I mean, I just think that's something that we need to look at.

Is this worth it?

And what if what if we get this in here?

I know everybody's excited about the money and bring it in, but what happens when it's here?

These are billion dollar corporations.

If we end up in a lawsuit with these people, they can own our entire county.

I mean, I I just think that we really need to slow this down and think about it and really consider the long-term effects for our community, for the environment, for the people, and really just take a step back before we go any further on this.

That's just my opinion.

Thank you.

I'll do one more.

I think we're gonna press up against the deadline here.

Oh, good afternoon.

My name is Gregory Secum.

And I have two questions, but I'll start with the one related to what to water.

If we're using 4% of or 0.4% of the water, what does that mean exact exactly?

For example, how far can we push that threshold total to can we go to a 99%?

Do we have to stop at 50?

Or do we have to stop at 30 before it starts to affect our environments or other possible companies that want to move in?

So if we were to push it to 99%, does it still accurate still represent the 0.4% accurately, or would we have to readjust that number for what our maximum would be say that again so it can we use 100% of what we're using the point?

Did you understand my question?

Uh yeah, I I think I did, and and frankly, um Mr.

Keenan would probably be better to answer that.

Um but unfortunately this is public comment, so that's why we're not engaging with you.

We're just listening put trust us that we're taking down your questions and we'll address them, but we can't engage with you.

Then my other question is benefits to us locally, as me or REC benefits us because of how many jobs it can supply.

But AI data centers, um, from what I've read, don't supply 300, 400 jobs, right?

Unless they're very large ones, of course.

If we were to focus on it from the economic standpoint of jobs supplied, how many jobs would AI in general?

This is kind of off topic anyway, but AI in general have taken away from other economies to supply 300.

Because if AI is used for image video stats programming, it removes the possibility of someone's occupation.

So if we're getting 300 but removing 4,000 from you know, globally, whatever, is it worth it in the long run, even just outside of our local situation?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Mr.

Sullivan, uh members of the committee, I appreciate all the work you put in here.

I just had one clarifying uh question about the water.

Uh Commissioner District 5, Russellary, by the way.

Um the the conversation about 44,000 gallons a day.

Uh I would it would be really helpful for all of us to see what the profile of that water usage is.

Obviously, the usage is mostly gonna be in the summertime.

So, yes, it's 44,000 gallons a day on average, but are we talking three million gallons a month for one month, or is it is it uh spread out over a longer period of time?

So it'd be helpful for all of us, I think, just to see what that profile looks like.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Okay.

You'll be my last one.

Okay.

My name's Lila Klobacar.

I live in Buxton, 116079 Fleecer Road.

And um I would just want a layout of what SAB has, where it's gonna go, um, and how it's gonna affect us in Buxton.

My property borders ASME currently, and I would just like to see how it's gonna affect.

Because at first I thought it was one data center, and then now we have all these cooling towers, and then possibly a chemical treatment plant.

I mean, I've heard a lot of different things, and maybe I'm not, because we go from trucking it out from trucking it in from whatever, banking the water, whatever, all those things.

But this is gonna affect my property, and I'm gonna be right next to it.

And I just want to make sure I want to know where the layout is and how it's gonna affect the people in my community of Buxton.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, everybody with that.

Um, I'm gonna ask uh maybe you want to make a motion to call her Andy.

Second?

All in favor?

Aye.

Anyone opposed?

Thank you.