MISSOULA, Mont. — When a proposed data center at the Bonner Industrial Park stirred incredible controversy across the community, the Missoula County Commissioners passed a zoning moratorium on data centers for a year, beginning this past July.
The moratorium also came with a task for county officials: they had to conduct a comprehensive study on not only the impacts of data centers, but what the county might be able to do to mitigate those impacts.
Now, that study is complete.
The results? Conclusive.
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“Our department's biggest takeaway is that data centers can have very real impacts on health, safety and the environment, and we need to take them seriously and to take action to address that,” said Svien Newman, climate action program manager for Missoula County.
Newman says that over the course of several months, the county concluded that from water to energy to noise, data centers have real impacts on a community.
But despite the impacts, Missoula County has limited options to regulate data centers — largely because of state law.
“There are some things that will have to be addressed by the state legislature because we sort of live within our own box of what we're legally allowed to do,” Newman said.
One tool the county does have when it comes to regulating data centers is zoning.
Newman says that with that tool, the county can require data centers to abide by rules set by the county.
“The county can set maximum limits on noise or different types of noise allowable, both in areas, but also as they're sort of received at neighboring areas, right? And you can't be too loud. You can require modeling up front to showcase that. We can require testing at the end to verify compliance with that, right? And so you go through noise, you go through water, you go through these other things. I think we can write rules that are a lot more protective than what we have today, most assuredly,” Newman said.
Missoula County will be holding a presentation Tuesday night going over the study and answering questions that community members may have.
That meeting will take place at the Missoula County Fairgrounds’ Home Arts Building starting at 6 p.m.
