Butte Silver Bow Ad Hoc Committee Meeting on Data Center Water Usage - Jan 27, 2026
Butte Silver Bow Ad Hoc Committee Meeting on Data Center Water Usage - Jan 27, 2026
The Butte Silver Bow Ad Hoc Committee convened to assess the facts regarding the Sabi data center proposal, focusing primarily on industrial water availability, system capacity, discharge protocols, and economic implications. Presentations by City Water Plant Superintendent Jim Keenan and Committee Member Bob Morris detailed the separation of the industrial (Silver Lake) and potable water systems, confirming sufficient capacity and zero discharge plans for the proposed facility. The committee also addressed public concerns regarding water loss, economic benefits, and project transparency.
Consent Calendar
- Approval of the minutes from the previous week's meeting via unanimous motion.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Dan O'Neill expressed full support for the development, arguing that Butte must embrace new economic opportunities and highlighting the natural advantage of cooler ambient temperatures for cooling efficiency compared to warmer regions like Arizona.
- Linda Trevena expressed opposition and concern regarding inconsistencies in presentation details, specifically questioning the lack of guaranteed diagrams from SABI, conflicting statements about discharge (from "none" to "hauled away"), and the need for clarity on potential pollutants.
- John Sorich questioned whether the utility must guarantee specific water volumes for future growth and sought clarification on whether the 80-degree Fahrenheit threshold refers to outside air temperature or water temperature.
- Stuart Parker clarified that the Bureau of Mines and Geology is not a consultant and cannot engage in direct communication with companies for financial gain, though they provide public geothermal information.
- John Moodry and the Silver Bow High Conservation District expressed conditional support, emphasizing that while they do not oppose the development, the basin requires additional storage capacity to mitigate the consumptive nature of new users.
- Evan Barrett expressed concern regarding the lack of specific data on direct job creation numbers (citing 20, 30, or 50 vs. 300) and stressed the need to be "real" about job numbers rather than relying on multipliers.
- Tanya Gardy expressed concern about long-term economic risks, the disparity in property tax rates between the data center and residential homeowners, and the potential for billion-dollar corporations to litigate the county.
- Gregory Secum questioned the threshold of water usage before environmental impacts become significant and raised a concern that AI data centers may globally displace more jobs than they create, reducing the net economic benefit.
- Russell (Commissioner District 5) requested clarification on the seasonal profile of the 44,000 gallons per day usage to determine if the demand is concentrated in specific months.
- Lila Klobacar expressed strong concern regarding the physical layout near Buxton, requesting detailed information on the placement of cooling towers and potential chemical treatment impacts on her property.
Discussion Items
- Jim Keenan presented the history, infrastructure, and capacity of the Silver Lake Water System, distinguishing it from the potable water system. He confirmed that the industrial system has direct flow rights of approximately 57 CFS (35.3 million gallons/day) and currently uses only about 10% of its capacity. He noted that the SABI project's projected usage (44,000 gallons/day) would not require drawing additional water from storage reservoirs during summer months.
- Bob Morris presented on the proposed cooling technology, explaining the "closed-loop adiabatic" system which minimizes water use by relying on air cooling until ambient temperatures exceed 80°F. He clarified that water consumption is approximately 0.2% of the industrial system's capacity and results in zero liquid discharge, only evaporation.
- Committee members and staff discussed the separation of systems, confirming that the proposed data center has no risk of cross-contamination with potable water due to the cross-connection control program.
- Eric Gonder (Pre-treatment Coordinator) and Bill Andrini (Wastewater Treatment Plant) addressed wastewater, confirming that while the data center would connect to the municipal sewer for sanitary waste, any industrial waste or chemical blowdown would require a permit and would likely be removed via truck rather than discharged into the system.
- SABI representatives (via Teams) clarified that they would not use solvent detergents, would truck any collected cleaning water off-site to a chemical treatment facility, and would not discharge industrial water into surface water or sewer lines without a permit.
- Bob Morris and Andy Babb discussed the "Large Load Tariff," explaining that new large customers, including data centers, are responsible for their own transmission and substation upgrades, and that the tariff process is regulated to prevent cost-shifting to other ratepayers.
- Bob Morris discussed the difference between the PJM capacity market (which saw price hikes due to data centers) and the Montana market, concluding that Montana's regulated planning and Western Resource Adequacy Program make similar price spikes unlikely.
- Committee members assigned actions to research the Quincy area's chamber of commerce experience, environmental impacts (lighting/noise), and educational curriculum compatibility with the data center industry.
Key Outcomes
- Unanimous agreement that the Sabi data center's proposed water usage is negligible (approx. 44,000 gallons/day or 0.2% of capacity) and will not impact the potable water supply or require new storage withdrawals from Silver Lake or Storm Lake.
- Confirmation that the proposed cooling system utilizes zero discharge technology, with any necessary maintenance water being collected and trucked off-site for third-party treatment.
- Consensus that the industrial water system has sufficient capacity to accommodate the project and future economic development without reaching capacity limits.
- Clarification that SABI is required to connect to the municipal sanitary sewer system for employee facilities but must segregate industrial lines if any industrial discharge occurs, subject to strict permitting.
- Action items assigned to committee members to gather data on job creation specifics, economic impacts, and environmental concerns to be reported in the next meeting.
- Meeting adjourned at 5:30 PM following public comments.
Meeting Transcript
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.
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