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.
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.