Developers of a $500 million data center looking to build in Batavia have promised an efficient cooling system to cut down on water usage, which the city has capped at 1,000 gallons per day.

The Batavia City Council this month amended an agreement with Miami-based energy and digital infrastructure company Hut 8 Corp. to provide water to the data center. The contract voted on on Sept. 2 limits the data center to 1,000 gallons per day on average.

Despite assurances from developers and the 1,000-gallon limit imposed by the amendment, residents and council members continued to voice concerns over the data center’s water consumption, while others said the topic has been blown out of proportion.

Mayor Jeff Shielke said the proposal still has a long way to go before final approval. He was not concerned with the water usage, but said a lot of questions remain unanswered.

“A year from now, this could be off the table and be gone if it doesn’t continue to go in a way we think is right,” Shielke said. “We’ve got a lot of firetrucks in town that carry 1,000 gallons of water on them. In the context of things, in my opinion, that’s not a lot of water.”

Hut 8 plans to build a 120,000-square-foot data center on the vacant industrial park lot at 1780 Hubbard Ave. Developers said they expect the center to be operational by winter 2026 and create about 30 new jobs.

While data centers using evaporative cooling systems require significant amounts of water each day, the closed-loop system Hut 8 Corp. intends to use would require far less water.

Shielke’s reassurance, however, did not satisfy some residents who spoke before the vote.

Batavia resident Susan Russo said she is not against a data center coming to Batavia. But she spoke in opposition to the city’s process.

“The negotiations for the data center have missed, and continue to miss, many opportunities,” Russo said.

Russo said she believes the city missed chances to address energy resource decisions, define the source of electricity, educate the public and engage energy experts in the process.

Russo said the agreement should explicitly require a closed-loop cooling system with water trucked in, rather than imply that both will be done.

“This is clearly not a commitment... It is an implication,” Russo said. “The problem with contracts that do not say what they mean to say is that they are vague. Vagueness leads to litigation.”

Batavia High School student Kasey Hubert expressed concern over the amount of time the city spent reviewing the data center agreement.

“City Council’s hurried actions on the data center agreement have severely constrained Batavians’ rights to aid these data center decisions and become informed,” Hubert said. “It is in my opinion that City Council’s conduct regarding the Hut 8 data center is not a good example of government transparency, and we deserve, as taxpayers and residents, to have more knowledge.”

After the residents’ comments, Alderperson Tim Lanci expressed his frustration with the continued conversation over water usage.

“No pun intended, but a lot of what was said does not hold water,” Lanci said. “This is crazy. If we’re going to sit here and talk about how much water this thing is going to use, we need to do a complete reevaluation of all the businesses. ... It’s insane that we’re putting this up on this pedestal, like this needs to be worried about... This is crazy, guys. Let it go.”

Closed-loop cooling requires an initial load of about 450,000 gallons of ionized water, which must be discharged and refilled every 2,000 days, or about once every five and a half years.

Hut 8 representative Chris Vickery told city officials Aug. 26 that developers plan to bring in ionized water by truck to fill the cooling systems.

Per the agreement, the city will provide potable water and wastewater services to the data center, limited to 1,000 gallons of water per day, with meters to monitor the facility’s water intake and discharge to ensure it remains within that limit.

City Administrator Laura Newman said the average person uses about 82 gallons per day, according to Environmental Protection Agency statistics.

The facility’s operators will be required to notify the city at least one week before discharging the cooling system water into the city’s wastewater system.

The amended agreement also prohibits Hut 8 from engaging in blockchain-related activities, including bitcoin (digital currency) mining, which requires excessive energy and resource demands.

The agreement will remain in effect for as long as the data center operates.

Alderperson Alice Lohman, who raised similar concerns over the data center’s use of water and artificial intelligence at recent meetings, said she was not comfortable with the language in the agreement.

“I don’t feel that that’s what we agreed upon,” Lohman said. “I’m not comfortable that we aren’t putting language in there that shows us that the water is being sourced from somewhere else.”

Alderperson Christopher Solfa disagreed with claims made by residents and council members regarding transparency. She called the water discussion “overblown.”

“Everything has been completely open and transparent,” Solfa said. “There’s no covert situation going on here. This is just a business that wants to establish their base here in Batavia.”

Lanci said he believes trying to control how data centers do business would be overreaching and not business-friendly.

“We can’t tell them, ‘this is how you do business today, this is how you do business forever,’” Lanci said. “It’s not the way America works.”

Alderperson Alan Wolff pointed to economic benefits that could come with the development.

“This is going to raise the property value by $500 million,” Wolff said. “The [data centers] that use open cooling systems and dump that hot steam into the atmosphere are a problem. The closed-loop system, even if they have to fill it up every five years, to me, is not an issue.”

City Council members approved the amended agreement in a 9-2 vote. Alderpersons Abby Beck, Leah Leman and Alice Lohman voted no.

Construction is not yet greenlit, however. Developers must next submit final data center plans to the city’s Plan Commission for review.