The Oklahoma-based company that owns one of the largest gas pipeline networks in the Northwest is beginning to pursue permits to expand that network, and to pump more gas to the region to meet rising electricity demand.

An eastern Oregon city that has for the last decade welcomed some of the largest data centers in the state is fighting Gov. Tina Kotek’s recent order meant to temporarily pause data center development, saying it could cost the city millions in direct financial losses. 

A new data center campus could soon be coming to federal land near Hermiston in eastern Oregon. 

The last weeks of summer find much of the Northwest experiencing historic drought causing water supply shortages for public water and electric utilities, costing farmers tens of millions of dollars in lost crops and leaving vegetation and soils dry and susceptible to fires. 

Eastern Oregon residents who have lived for years with contaminated water can move forward with a class action lawsuit against the Port of Morrow and large food processors in the area, a federal judge ruled.

Umatilla Electric Cooperative in Hermiston is one of six utilities across Washington and Oregon that have absorbed the bulk of energy demands of data centers in the region. A growing number of utilities are using booming data center demand to justify skirting climate rules in both states that mostly ban the build-out of new gas infrastructure, citing the need for regional energy reliability. 

Supporters of a Goldendale pumped-hydro energy storage project have said it will help meet growing regional energy demand, and the project developers tout its potential to one day power up to half a million homes without sending harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But mounting evidence shows a large data center campus could be among the main beneficiaries of that power. 

Tech giant Amazon will pay $20.5 million to settle with northeast Oregonians living with contaminated groundwater in exchange for no admission of guilt in the polluting.