Bonner Data Center

This proposed center is bad for the community, environment, and economy. A recent paper out of the University of Michigan found that data centers:

Increase utility costs: "Data centers increase local electric utility rates by driving up overall
energy demand, which can strain grid capacity and force utilities to invest in costly infrastructure
upgrades. These costs are passed on to residents through higher rates."

Consume a high amount of natural resources: "A single data center can consume up to 2 megawatt hours of power—equivalent to the power used by 2,000 homes—and millions of gallons of water annually for cooling, straining local resources and infrastructure."

Don't deliver promised economic benefits: "Tax breaks for data centers do not deliver the promised economic benefits, such as high-paying jobs, and they reduce local tax revenues, while shifting financial burdens onto communities and schools."

Approving this center relies putting good faith in an industry that has shown NONE OF IT back to the communities they prey on.

Data centers exist to advance AI.

AI exists to mine data so rich people get richer (exponentially).

This is not a net good for Montana or Montanans.

Our waterways and river-adjacent sites are precious natural resources. I’m very disappointed that we’re even considering using the Blackfoot as a water source for a data center. I oppose this proposed site.

Well, in over 300 comments that this discussion has brought forth from the community, I have not seen A SINGLE ONE that is actually for these data centers. So I guess that solves it! We will NOT be having a data center put anywhere near us in Montana!

Discussion over! Project rejected!

P.S.
If it is not rejected, the community members will be investigating whoever voted yes to this preposterous, disastrous project.

Thank you!

I am strongly opposed to the Board approving this Special Exception Application for the Bonner data center project. At its most basic, I oppose the construction of data centers in Missoula County on environmental and financial grounds. I would expect this project to increase utility costs as well as put immense pressure on our already precarious water resources. The source of the industrial water right for this project is the Blackfoot River, meaning the data center would draw from this river for coolant during the period when water levels are already lowest in the hottest months of the year. I cannot abide the idea of drawing precious water out of this invaluable waterway for the purposes of cooling a data center that doesn't benefit residents in any way. The Blackfoot River is incredible important to my family's recreation and enjoyment, and I object strongly to it being threatened by this needless project that offers nothing of value to Missoula County residents. Please reject this special use request.

It is not our job to figure out what should be there instead; but you know what would be absolutely excellent to have across from a school? A hospital. We also could use a police department; an even wilder idea... why not give Bonner-Milltown a high-school and a large library. Put a pedestrian bridge across the road. Keep the kids safe when crossing and not impede traffic. I am wondering why we can't have nice things out here like this, and instead it's every other get-rich-quick scheme from truck stops, mining, gravel pits and data centers? Folks out here want good paying jobs, access to clean water and air. Improvements to QOL, green space and parks. Quaint little shops that are ran by locals.

Show the community that educated and concerned officials are in charge of that board meeting. That you have read and seen what these centers are and what effect it will have on the community and resources.

There currently is no laws, rules or regulations for AI itself and for the centers being built.

What will the cost be saying no until it’s proven it is safe and beneficial for the people and resources.
What will the cost be if you say yes?
Your names will be remembered with these decisions. Your continued support will be based on these decisions.

I urge the Board to deny the Special Exception permit for the Krambu data center at Bonner Mill.

Missoula County planners have already deemed this application incomplete three times, demonstrating the developer is not being transparent about their true impacts.

This project plans to scale up to 100 megawatts. This massive drain risks driving up NorthWestern Energy bills for everyday Montana residential ratepayers.

The evaporative cooling towers threaten our local aquifer and the Blackfoot River corridor with heavy water consumption.

Finally, this provides virtually zero permanent jobs for our community while introducing constant industrial noise and environmental risks.Your role is to protect Bonner’s residents and Montana's natural resources, not out-of-state corporations.

I am a Missoula County resident. Please vote No on this permit. Thank you.

I am a Missoula County resident. This is no way shape or forms benefits the community of Missoula, Bonner, or the surrounding communities. This is an excuse to line county officials pockets. It will not benefit the community. It will harm the beautiful Blackfoot, reduce recreation opportunities, and potentially have harmful effects on the health of the Blackfoot River. In addition, I imagine a rise in water costs as well as energy costs will be a given too. Property values in Bonner will be destroyed as well. In no way shape or form does a data center have a place anywhere near Missoula or anywhere near our exceptionally special bodies of water. I oppose this whole heartedly and I promise that if this data center is approved I will ensure that everything standing county official never gets another vote from me. Don’t forget you are public servants and nothing else.

Removed by moderator.

Removed by moderator.

As detailed by the multitude of submissions on this public comment section, the public is overwhelmingly against this data center. Fully legitimate and undeniable arguments against the data center, including but not limited to, unprecedented environmental harm and massively increased local energy costs have all been voiced. No one with a sound mind and care for the people and land here would possibly think this is a good idea.

Further, it would be purely inconceivable how anyone from anywhere could think this horrible proposal for a data center in Bonner, Montana can even come close to meeting the vital criteria of MCCLUB's Special Exceptions. Given the local water and energy usage such a plant would need, a massive data center could never be compatible with the surrounding neighborhood and is an absolute assault on the surrounding environment when weighed against MCCLUB's considerations listed in the County's project description as items 5a through 5m. Finally, the very idea of using TIF funds as part of the proposed special exception is a fundamental insult to all who live within the Bonner and Missoula area. This is because Tax Increment Funding, or TIF, never directly goes back to the community and ends up being a glorified subsidy for the developer. News articles published across the nation have detailed how TIF funding for massive industrial projects have eventually backlashed against local communities. TIF funding seriously has the potential to literally make local residents pay in various ways for the very entity that ends up contributing to their destruction and degradation.

This data center proposal is unacceptable, and literally, an abomination. Say NO to the data center and protect the people who live here and the priceless environment we live in.

As a Missoula County resident, I am against a data center in Bonner or anywhere else in the county. This does not serve the community or the land. We have an obligation to protect Missoula and the Blackfoot River from this type of development.

As a long time Missoula resident I am against the Bonner data center. We do not want this in our community. It will not benefit our residents in any way and once again brings only profit to the richest and problems to the rest of us. Until there is a safe, responsible plan for AI I think there should be a halt on all future data centers.

Montana does not need another environmentally harmful industry to enter this building, or to enter our state. We are still cleaning up superfund sites all over the state due to harmful mining and manufacturing practices. I live down river from one of those super fund sites, and I would hate to see another one be built before our very eyes. The developer is either willfully ignorant or intentionally misleading with their information about water and energy usage of a data center. According to reporting by NPR and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2022, mid-sized data centers use about 300,000 gallons of water per day. This will quickly drain the fire suppression well, impact the wells of Bonner residents in a heartbeat, and add stress to a river system already damaged, and still recovering from, the old mill. 80% of this water will become wastewater, overwhelming Missoula's wastewater treatment facility. In an area where we face extreme wildfire seasons, where we have fragile ecosystems, and where residents rely on wells for clean drinking water, a data center would be absolutely catastrophic. I urge the Land Use Board to deny the request for this irresponsible use of our resources.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/08/30/1119938708/data-centers-backbone-of-the-digital-economy-face-water-scarcity-and-climate-ris

I am very much opposed to the data center in Bonner. Bonner is a small, lower income community in a beautiful
setting along the Blackfoot River. The dada center will use large quantities of resources - electric, water that has not been explained and analyzed and transparent. NW Energy has not been transparent. The data center will not provide a significant number of jobs for the community, so I wonder what it will bring when it will TAKE much from our community. Further, AI has not been fully articulated and planning a data center at this time anywhere is premature. DO NOT APPROVE this data center

A large part of the tourism industry in the area relies on our rivers for guided fishing tours, river activities, etc. With the amount of water these take, this would absolutely destroy the environment, culture and industry so many rely on for absolutely no benefit. Not only that but aesthetically, no one wants this. Please, do not approve permitting for this.

We have vacationed in Missoula every year for the past 10 years, and we stayed in Bonner last year. There is no way we would book a vacation to stay near a data center! We come to Missoula for the beauty and peace. A data center would bring noise and pollution and be a total deterrent for us.

This data center does nothing to help our community and has many negative and will cause irreparable harm to our beautiful lands, water and community. I do not support this data center, the request and permit should be rejected.

I am against a data center, along with the Missoula community. We don’t need nor want one. Montana is a land of nature preservation. Data centers are a plague on the United States right now and the only people profiting off them are the rich pricks who build them. Stop building data centers. Stop harming our land.

I moved to Missoula in 2004. When Missoula was a community that valued community. The kindness and consideration shown to strangers on the street was new to me. People cared about their neighbors and the community- the same values the Land Use Board is based on.

Now, in 2026, you’d have to live under a rock to not be aware of what’s happening across the US with data centers popping up in rural America, destroying aquifers, disrupting the power grid, and upsetting daily living.

There is clear opposition from the community for this data center. There is clear opposition from other communities when data centers were proposed for them. The only people who want data centers are the people who build them.

This is not what Missoula wants or needs.