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Of all of the communities in Montana grappling with data center proposals, it feels fitting that Butte is ground zero for local debates about the environmental and energy impacts of data centers.
Butte is, after all, Montana’s original industrial heartland. In the 19th and 20th centuries, miners excavated billions of pounds of copper from a vast network of tunnels beneath The Mining City. Butte copper played a critical role in the electrification of America. And, as it turns out, you can’t run a data center — a warehouse (or multiple warehouses) filled with stacks of chip-laden servers — without a large, stable supply of electricity.
Water is another critical piece of the conversation. Although data centers can, and often do, use some form of forced air to cool their servers, water-based systems are more efficient. There is a tradeoff involved. If you want to reduce a data center’s use of water, you must increase its use of electricity, Aaron Wemhoff, a mechanical engineer who studies ways to make data centers more environmentally friendly, told me in a recent conversation. Electricity generation comes with its own set of water considerations, particularly if the power plant is fossil-fuel-based. (For instance, Colstrip, Montana’s largest power plant, uses millions of gallons of Yellowstone River water each day.)
Enter two data-center projects that the Butte-Silver Bow County Commission is weighing — proposals that have generated so much community interest that the commission recently formed an ad hoc data center development committee.
One proposal involves a 150-megawatt expansion of an existing (air-cooled) cryptocurrency-mining facility that Atlas Power operates south of Butte. A few miles west of town, Sabey Data Centers plans to use 600 acres of local government-owned land and water to house and cool its 250-megawatt facility.
While Montanans have a pretty firm idea of these projects’ electricity needs, details about their water requirements have been harder to pin down. Neither company agreed to be interviewed for a story on the subject that Montana Free Press published this week. It’s not particularly surprising that Atlas and Sabey are reluctant to field public questions. Many companies are rushing to build new data centers before local pushback and potential regulatory reform spook investors, Wemhoff told me.
But by the same token, it shouldn’t be surprising to Atlas and Sabey that Butte residents are approaching the projects with trepidation. While Buttians have a track record of welcoming economic development, they’re also wise to the trade-offs involved. Indeed, perhaps no other Montana community has a more colorful history in that regard.
— Amanda Eggert
The Viz 📈
Reviewing materials for the state’s ongoing school funding study commission this week, I stumbled across an analysis from the Montana School Boards Association that made my jaw hit the floor: Passage rates for the levy measures by which Montana school districts ask voters to raise property taxes to supplement state-mandated education funding have plummeted in recent years.
Lance Melton, the school boards association director, wrote in his analysis that, through the 1990s and early 2000s, levies proposed by school districts across the state typically passed at rates of 90% or more. That’s changed since the Great Recession, he added, with a particularly sharp drop since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — even as fewer districts are putting levies on the ballot.
In theory, the levy system, part of the state’s heinously complicated K-12 funding formula, gives voters some discretion over whether to prioritize extra school funding or lower taxes at a community level. However, as inflation and other factors have squeezed school budgets in recent years, Melton and other education leaders have argued that funding from voted levies is increasingly necessary to support basic services.
You can read our coverage here.
— Eric Dietrich
Hot Potato 🥔
Montana’s governor and attorney general teamed up Wednesday to warn Helena about dire consequences for not playing nice with ICE.
Helena city commissioners voted 4-1 Jan. 26, to not allow local government assistance to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Gov. Greg Gianforte and Attorney General Austin Knudsen, both Republicans, warned that the 2021 Legislature made it illegal for state and local governments to refuse to assist federal agencies on immigration matters. Not complying could mean paying $10,000 for every five days out of compliance, according to Knudsen. Helena could also be denied funding from Montana’s Coal Board, which spends about $18 million a year on infrastructure projects around the state.
The advocates of the Helena resolution told Montana Free Press Thursday that it was thoroughly researched and that Helena shouldn’t be cowed by the governor and AG. Knudsen called a civil complaint against Helena likely, but said one hadn’t been filed yet. A scarcity of police resources was a primary concern for Helena, said Ashley Fischer, a community organizer who urged the Helena council to adopt the resolution.
Public protests and calls for local governments to act preventively have rippled through Montana’s other cities, including Missoula and Billings, following the killings by federal agents of two protesters in Minneapolis in January.
“Gianforte is using this as a scare tactic to intimidate other cities from passing similar resolutions,” Fischer said in an email to MTFP. “Billings, Bozeman and Missoula representatives have reached out to us in interest. Community members in all three cities, as well as Great Falls, Kalispell and Red Lodge, have also reached out on how to get this started in their cities.
“We know this community organizing and pressure is working,” Fischer said. “We also know this scares Gianforte. This is why he is reacting the way he is to a very legal resolution.”
The Helena City Commission had been working on an ICE police policy for months. Helena police on Jan. 26 withdrew from a regional drug task force because of collaboration with U.S. Border Patrol Agents.
— Tom Lutely
Verbatim 💬
“Historically, when we approach an issue like this, our staff members will keep notes as they are working through things. There may be email communications between staff members or between leaders to address this. We had an additional system that works within our compliance space. So we have a couple of different locations. And that was honestly, again, that was part of the problem that we have to own as an organization, and did own and did correct. And that is we need a single source of where this information goes in a timely fashion.”
St. Peter’s Health CEO Wade Johnson, speaking to Montana Public Radio on Wednesday about a 2025 federal inspection that cited the hospital for mishandling documentation of sexual assault reports.
The findings, first reported this week by Montana Free Press, prompted federal officials to place St. Peter’s in “immediate jeopardy,” a major step toward the facility losing its ability to bill public health insurance programs. The hospital was removed from that status a week later, after it submitted a plan of correction to federal inspectors.
Our coverage can be found here and here.
— Mara Silvers
Snapshot 📸
Isabelle Nordwick and Atley Jensen talk while watching the Froid-Medicine Lake’s boys basketball team play Bainville Feb. 7 in Medicine Lake. Both the boys and girls teams sported Orozco Diesel shirts to show support for Roberto Orozco-Ramirez, a father of four and beloved diesel mechanic who was arrested on illegal re-entry charges last month. Two of his sons play on the basketball team. Last weekend, Nora Mabie and I traveled to Froid to spend time in the community and better understand and connect with people who live there. You can find our coverage here.
Also, Montana Free Press launched a new pop-up newsletter where you can find updates on Orozco-Ramirez’s legal case, his backstory, neighbors’ perspectives and other immigration policy news in the state. Sign up at MontanaFreePress.org/Froid.
— Lauren Miller
3 questions for ❓
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Feb. 6 that allows the importation of 80,000 metric tons of beef from Argentina into the United States. He cited record-high domestic beef prices alongside his responsibility “to ensure that hard-working Americans can afford to feed themselves and their families.” Two emeritus agricultural economics professors at Montana State University recently published an analysis with the American Enterprise Institute, a center-right think tank, estimating that the then-proposed importation of Argentine beef would reduce domestic beef prices by about three cents per pound.
Tim Brunner, a cattle rancher who spoke on behalf of the Montana Cattlemen Association, told Montana Free Press that he was disappointed in the president’s decision, opining that it would only help meat-packing corporations and Argentine ranchers. He was also concerned that Trump might increase ground beef imports in the future.
Another professor of agricultural economics at MSU, Eric Belasco, answered MTFP’s questions about how the increase in beef supply will impact Montana ranchers. His answers have been condensed and edited for clarity.
MTFP: What impact will the added importation of beef from Argentina have on Montana ranchers?
Belasco: Montana ranchers face national prices, but the largest impact on those prices is domestic supply. And then there’s also some larger importers. Australia comes to mind; they import a lot more than Argentina. Big increases from that country — or Canada, Mexico — could have a larger impact. But Argentina, being such a small player at this point, it’s not really going to impact the national price.
MTFP: How economically viable is Montana’s cattle industry right now?
Belasco: I’d say it’s doing very well right now. Prices are very strong, especially for cow-calf operations. They’re seeing probably the strongest prices they’ve ever seen. And so I’d say it’s a good time to be in ranching. It’s always a volatile business, but prices are very good right now in Montana.
MTFP: Should ranchers be worried about future executive orders?
Belasco: Agriculture, especially in commodities where we operate in a global market, has to worry about not just U.S. policies, but other countries’ policies. So, for wheat, we could think of other countries imposing tariffs on us. I know lentils have base tariffs from India, for example. And so the geopolitical nature definitely can cause volatility.
The beef market is a bit more domestic than some of those other products. Ninety percent of what we consume is typically produced in the U.S. It can go down, depending upon exchange rates and domestic prices, but by and large, it’s mostly domestic production that we consume. So it might not be as vulnerable as some other commodities.
— Zeke Lloyd
Highlights ☀️
In other news this week —
• Montana Sen. Steve Daines wants to strip protection for some potential wilderness areas.
• National Park Service still mum on whether you’ll need a ticket to enter Glacier this summer.
• Missoula mobile home park residents unionize in hopes of limiting rent increases.
On Our Radar
Mara — Apropos of nothing, here’s a basic car maintenance tutorial for anyone who, ahem, may have pushed their vehicle into a state of inoperability because of, simply put, profound neglect.
Zeke — A week of happenings has kept us busy in the newsroom. On a tight deadline, it’s easy to find an algorithm-generated playlist for focus music, but allow me to instead recommend the humble, gentle lo-fi feel of tinkerer.
Jacob — If you ever needed to know a country’s population, GDP or internet suffix, the CIA World Factbook had you covered. It was a resource I leaned on throughout school and even spent time reading for fun. The once-classified country-by-country reference is now offline, but (mostly) preserved on Internet Archive. End of an era.
Nick — My book club for old guys (bourbon may be involved) recently assigned “History Matters,” by David McCullough, and I could not be more pleased. The collection of essays by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian offers a wonderful and hopeful reminder of what we can learn from the past. Here’s a sample: “History shows us how to behave. History teaches, reinforces what we believe in, what we stand for, and what we ought to be willing to stand up for.”
Eric — It’s a rare thing for Instagram’s algorithm to suggest new content to me that’s anything other than the dullest sort of Internet slop, but it managed to score a big win this week: The account of this guy in Missouri who is by appearances one of the world’s leading experts in the production of dollhouse-scale furniture. If social media is (understandably) not your thing, this profile of him is also very much worth your click.
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This week’s edition of Lowdown was edited by Nick Ehli with additional copy editing by Brad Tyer.