No Data Centers in Butte County. Say So Before Tuesday at Noon.

Submit written comment by Tuesday at noon to bcwater@buttecounty.net, or show up Wednesday, August 5, at 1:30 PM. Here's why it matters.

Butte County's Water Commission is meeting Wednesday to talk about AI data centers here. No company has filed a proposal yet that we know of, but the door is being propped open right now, and this is the moment to say clearly: not here.

We've already watched a "maybe" turn into chaos next door.

In late June, an unnamed company made a single phone call about an old bottling plant in Mount Shasta. No application, no vote, nothing formal. It still triggered hundreds of angry calls, a petition, and even death threats aimed at local officials, over a project that never existed. 

Siskiyou County had no policy in place, so panic filled the gap. 

Butte County doesn't have to end up there. The way to avoid it is to close the door now, not leave it half-open and hope nobody knocks.

Oroville has approved a new biomass power plant, and the city's own materials say part of the point is attracting "energy-intensive industries," like data centers. That capacity shouldn't get built quietly and then sold to the highest bidder. It should stay off the table for this use, period.

PG&E's neglected equipment started the 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed Paradise. PG&E pleaded guilty to 84 counts of involuntary manslaughter in Butte County Superior Court. That's not ancient history. That's the same grid, the same company, being asked to take on a new, permanent, high-demand customer. 

A data center doesn't get evacuated when the power lines that feed it start a fire. Our neighborhoods do.

Data centers also draw enormous amounts of water and electricity. Our groundwater is already stretched, and agriculture depends on it. Butte County's groundwater basins are managed under the state's sustainability law, and the local agency covering much of the county has already approved a plan that critics say lets water tables drop low enough to threaten domestic wells and mature trees, a plan currently tied up in litigation. 

That's the water table a data center, or the power plant built to feed one, would be drawing against. Local farmers and ag families have spent years fighting to keep that same groundwater basin from being over-pumped.

 It shouldn't have to absorb a new industrial claimant on top of that. Especially not for a handful of long-term local jobs, while the bill risk, the water risk, and the grid risk land on everyone else. That math doesn't work here, and it doesn't need to.

Be Loud before Wednesday

• Written comment: email bcwater@buttecounty.net by Tuesday at noon. Two or three sentences is enough. Say you oppose data centers in Butte County, and say why! There are many reasons that might be important to you, from the Camp Fire, to the biomass plant already opening the door, and what just happened in Siskiyou County.

• In person: attend the Butte County Water Commission meeting, 

  • Wednesday, August 5 at 1:30 PM, 

  • Board of Supervisors Chambers, 25 County Center Drive, Ste 205, Oroville.

This is a small window. The decisions made this week shape whether Butte County becomes an easy yes for the next company that calls, or a clear no before they ever pick up the phone.