What is Happening in Oregon with Amazon’s Data Centers?
Photograph by JENNY KANE/AP, originally published in Rolling Stone, Nov 2025
Get the facts and take action to stop the unchecked expansion.
For nearly four decades, families in the Lower Umatilla Basin have been drinking contaminated water while billion-dollar companies expanded around them.
In recent years, data centers moved into the Lower Umatilla Basin and worsened our groundwater problem. Data centers consume enormous volumes of water for cooling, concentrating nitrate and other contaminants as that water evaporates. They also pollute our air with massive diesel generators and devour the electric grid, threatening to drive up our energy costs. (13)
Morrow County already has the most acreage of data centers in Oregon (14). And 75 percent of Oregon’s future data center buildout is expected in Morrow and Umatilla counties alone (10). Eastern Oregon is ground zero for Oregon’s runaway data center boom.
Amazon Settlement Update
On March 31st, Amazon Data Services settled its part in the nitrate pollution crisis poisoning drinking water across eastern Oregon (5). This was a first step, but it isn't justice.
The Amazon settlement doesn't come close to meeting the scale of harm in an ongoing public health and environmental crisis.
At the same time, Amazon moves forward on Oregon's first “Exascale” data center, doubling its footprint in our region (6).
While the Pearson v. Port of Morrow class action continues against the region's other major polluters (2), we are continuing to call for polluters to be held accountable for real solutions that put people before profits.
Stop Data Center Takeover in Eastern Oregon
A data center built right next to a residential neighborhood in Eastern Oregon.
We are calling for an immediate moratorium to stop the unchecked data center expansion in Eastern Oregon - to protect our water, our air, farmland, and the health of our rural communities and economy.
No matter how big the polluter is, we’ll continue to build rural people's power. For the past 4 years, we've stood with our community in calling on every polluter responsible to pay for the economic and health impacts they’ve caused.
Sign the immediate moratorium petition and learn more.
Read more about data centers in Oregon:
Port of Morrow continues to apply excess nitrates on farmland, misses payment deadline (OPB, January 2024)
Fed up with slow fix, Oregon residents sue businesses over nitrate pollution (OPB, February 2024)
‘The Precedent Is Flint’: How Oregon’s Data Center Boom Is Supercharging a Water Crisis (Rolling Stone, November 2025)
Data centers strain water supply in Oregon town already facing pollution crisis (Fox 12, December 2025)
Amazon to pay $20.5 million settlement over northeast Oregon nitrate pollution (Oregon Capitol Chronicle, March 2026)
Amazon plans another data center southwest of Tri-Cities (Tri-Cities Business News, April 2026)
Federal judge clears path for Eastern Oregon nitrate pollution lawsuit to go to trial (OPB, June 2026).
Data Centers and Ground Water Pollution in the Lower Umatilla Basin (KBOO, April 2026)
Amazon to Pay $20.5 Million in Settlement of Class Action Suit Over Pollution in Eastern Oregon (Rolling Stone, April 2026)
Oregon communities envision 9,100 acres for new data centers, quadrupling the industry’s footprint (The Oregonian, March 2026)
Data Centers And Industrial Farming Are Fueling A Groundwater Crisis, with Kaleb Lay (Breaking Green, May 2026)
AI: Murky Water Management (Canada Radio, May 2026)
Why Data Centers Pose an Outsized Threat to Eastern Oregon’s Air Quality (Oregon Public Broadcast, July 2026)
Boomtown and battleground: Small Oregon county grapples with data centers’ impact (The Oregonian, May 2026)