Why data centers pose an outsized threat to Eastern Oregon’s air quality

By April Ehrlich - OPB

When the Waltons built their lemon-colored ranch home outside Umatilla in northeast Oregon, they were drawn to the area’s rolling hills.

“All of our neighbors were farmers,” Josh Walton said on a sunny afternoon this spring. “So, all this used to be a cornfield.”

The landscape has changed a lot in the last 15 years. Instead of overlooking crop fields and the Columbia River in the distance, the Waltons’ backyard view is now the towering white walls of a data center operated by Amazon.

This complex of four boxy buildings is roughly the size of nine Walmart Supercenters. At night, its stadium-level lighting shines into the Waltons’ bedroom windows, making sleep difficult for Walton, his wife and their two teenage sons. Most summer days, the data center’s cooling fans drone like low-flying passenger jets.

“Except it’s constant and doesn’t fade away,” Walton said.

The family could face another intrusion from their super-sized neighbors: diesel pollution.