The Dalles settles lawsuit over Google data center public records, will disclose water use to The Oregonian/OregonLive

[ad_1]

The Dalles agreed to disclose how much of the city’s water Google’s data centers use, abandoning a 13-month legal battle to keep the information secret and pledging to release the company’s water usage in future years.

The case was a major test for Oregon’s public records law. After The Oregonian/OregonLive requested Google’s records last year, The Dalles sued the news organization to prevent the release of the information. He argued that Google’s use of the water was a trade secret exempt from Oregon’s disclosure requirements.

The city has now given up on this effort. In a settlement filed Wednesday in Wasco County Circuit Court, The Dalles agreed to provide 10 years of water usage data to Google and to provide annual water usage in future years.

The Dalles will also pay $53,000 to cover attorney fees for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the nonprofit advocacy group that represented The Oregonian/OregonLive in the case.

The city said Wednesday that its attorney fees total $106,000 and that Google has pledged to cover those costs and the $53,000 settlement.

That deal raises questions about governments’ willingness to defer to big business on transparency issues, as well as the underlying question of how public utilities manage their water.

The information itself is of the highest public interest, said Ellen Osoinach, the RCFP attorney who represented The Oregonian/OregonLive in the case.

This is a limited common resource and the West is in a drought situation, Osoinach said. There are data centers all over the country and right here in Oregon, and the amount of water they consume is something incredibly important to all water users.

The city pledged to provide information about Google’s water usage within one day of the agreement going into effect. This means that information may be available this week. The Dalles is committed to making information about Google’s water use available to The Oregonian/OregonLive and anyone else who requests it.

This seemed to be a perfect example of a clash of two major storylines, both the expansion of big business and the public resource it needs, said Therese Bottomly, editor of The Oregonian/OregonLive. So we think Oregonians should have all the information they deserve to make the best decisions.

The Dalles negotiated a new water rights deal with Google last year, a $28.5 million deal that forces the Silicon Valley company to pay for an upgrade to the city’s water system and entitles it to a share of the additional water made available after the project.

Google and other tech companies use water to cool the high-performance computers that run data centers. The company had indicated that the additional water would allow the company to build more data centers in the city. Google has since obtained administrative approval to build a new data center, but hasn’t said when or if it will go ahead.

The water deal garnered national attention as environmentalists, farmers and tribal leaders questioned whether The Dalles’ commitments to Google would limit water available for other purposes.

When The Oregonian/OregonLive asked how much water Google was already using, the city refused to disclose even after the Wasco County District Attorney ordered the city to provide logs. Many other Oregon jurisdictions, including Hillsboro, Prineville and Broadman, readily provide details of water usage by major utility customers.

The Dalles sued to block the release of the information, however, arguing that Google’s use of the water was a trade secret. The Dalles City Council approved the water rights deal soon after, but kept the water use a secret for more than a year as the case moved to trial.

Our attorneys felt strongly, and convinced us, that we had a very good case, that the use of the water was actually a trade secret, Richard Mays, mayor of The Dalles, said in an interview Wednesday. Google was concerned that competitors know how they cool their servers.

Ultimately, though, Mays said Google changed its position and agreed to release the water logs. That’s why we backed off, she said.

Some city council members said last year they wanted the public to have access to Google’s water usage before voting to approve the water deal. But council members still voted unanimously in favor of the deal after the city agreed to give the council access to the information.

On Wednesday, Mays said he didn’t think it necessary for the public to have details about Google’s water usage before such a deal.

They’ll know now, so I really don’t see it being a big deal, Mays said.

Google declined to comment on the settlement or its expansion plans in The Dalles.

Allowing Google to fund the city’s legal battle introduces more concerns about how The Dalles was enforcing Oregon’s public records law, according to Tim Gleason, former dean of the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication.

Private money funding public litigation distorts the entire public process and harms the public interest, said Gleason, now a professor emeritus at the university.

Lawmakers probably never considered the possibility of a private company funding an effort to seal public records, Gleason said. Now that that’s happened, he said lawmakers should revise the Public Records Act to prevent private companies from keeping public information away from the public.

This turns everything upside down, he said. Allowing a private entity essentially public defense funding to keep something out of the public domain is simply against the basic intent of the law.

The problem, Gleason said, is that the Dalles City Council voted on the water rights deal while Google-funded litigation kept information about the company’s water use from members.

The city council has made decisions based on information that the public has not had access to during this process, he said. Presumably, if Google hadn’t funded this litigation (that) this wouldn’t have been the case.

–Mike Rogoway| [email protected] | 503-294-7699 | Twitter: @rogoway |

Our journalism needs your support. Become a subscriber today at OregonLive.com/subscribe.

[ad_2]