The Dalles

The Dalles is the county seat of Wasco County, Oregon, with 16,010 residents at the 2020 census, on the Columbia River about 75 miles east of Portland. Google began building a data centre there in 2006. For years the city fought The Oregonian's request for Google's water-use records, until a settlement in December 2022 released them.

Those records make the city a test of what hyperscale expansion costs a small American town. The campus takes about 550 million gallons a year, and a $260 million upgrade to keep up with demand puts residents on course for a 99% rise in water rates by 2036. The city is eyeing the salmon-habitat Hood River Basin to supply a fifth Google building. Google's 3 June 2026 water pledge commits $17 million across seven states and targets 19 billion gallons of annual replenishment by 2030, but that figure nets water across every site and basin, while The Dalles loses 40% of its supply at one tap.

Governor Tina Kotek wrote to Oregon's environment department on 9 October 2026 seeking a halt, until 1 July 2027, to discharge permits for data centres that are new or growing, city wastewater permits included.