Data Centers on the Columbia River
By: Kelly Campbell, Policy Director
Data center expansion is rapidly transforming the Columbia River Basin with little regulation. Big Tech is notoriously secretive about its data center plans, and the government has yet to release a report on the impacts of data centers. We’ve got questions, such as:
- Where are the current and planned data centers along the Columbia River and how big are they?
- Who owns and operates data centers along the river?
- How much energy and water do they use, and where is it coming from?
Sounds like information that should be easy to gather, right? Wrong. It turns out that the data center industry—led by some of the wealthiest corporations in the world—is pretty secretive about how their data centers operate, leading us to wonder: what are they trying to hide?
In A Closer Look: Columbia River Data Centers, we dig into what is known about data center proliferation near the Columbia River, in both Oregon and Washington. We delve into the data from 12 counties along the river where data centers are operational or planned. We also offer a set of eight recommendations to address harms caused by data center overdevelopment.
What is clear from our research is that data center expansion along the Columbia River is driving up electricity costs and threatening water supplies, all while Big Tech continues to seek tax breaks and remains secretive about their data centers’ energy and water consumption.
As data center development is moving quickly, this report offers a snapshot in time as of February, 2026.
While elected officials in both Oregon and Washington have attempted legislation to rein in data center expansion, and both governors have commissioned data center committees to advise them, this report makes it clear that we need to do more to address the wide-ranging impacts of data centers on our communities, water, and climate.
