Meta pledges to make improvements so Kuna can attract more homeowners, businesses
When Meta announced that it would build a data center in Kuna, the company promised to spend $50 million to build a new water and sewer system for the city.
The Menlo Park, California, company said Wednesday that it plans to spend $800 million on the data center and $50 million to create the water and sewer system. Meta said it would build the system and then turn it over to the city to own and operate.
“The problem is that our wastewater treatment plant is way too far away from that site, so we required that it be a whole different system,” Kuna Mayor Joe Stear said in an interview. “We have a lot of capacity remaining at our wastewater plant, but we don’t have anything out in that industrial park.”
Meta will need lots of water to keep its servers cool.
“They’ll drill new wells that pick the water up out of the ground,” Stear said. “Most of the water they’re going to use is for cooling, so it will recirculate and then go back out.”
The company will install several water storage tanks that will allow Meta to recharge the underground aquifers where the water will be pulled from, he said.
The city’s wastewater treatment plant, which treats about 900,000 gallons of waste per day and has a capacity of 3 million gallons, is located at 6950 S. Ten Mile Road. That’s nearly 14 miles northwest of Meta’s industrial site at the corner of Kuna Mora Road and South Cole Road.
“They use quite a bit of water, but most of what they use is going to go right back to where it came from,” Stear said.
The added infrastructure will benefit new homes built in that area. Stear hopes it will also allow Kuna to attract other companies to the Boise bedroom community.
“There’s fewer and fewer places for companies to locate,” he said. “This opens an opportunity for other companies to locate here, because there’s a place to do it, and the infrastructure will be in place for them to build.”
The water and wastewater treatment facilities are “designed over-capacity” for Meta’s needs, Treasure Morgan, Kuna’s economic development director, said by phone.
“It’s also being built in a way that’s expandable so we can add additional users out in that area,” Morgan said. “In the past year, the city has annexed a little over 1,500 acres in industrial zoning out there.”
The city has wanted to have industrial space available for many years, Morgan said.
“This project is really going to be a catalyst to finally getting some property situated so that it’s attractive for companies that could provide good family-wage jobs,” she said.
Darcy Nothnagle, Meta’s director of community and economic development, said it’s important for the company to be the “best neighbor” possible.
“We have a goal to restore more water than we consume,” she said. “That means that right here in Idaho we are investing in water restoration projects that will replenish local watersheds.”
Meta’s data centers are designed to use at least 80% less water than the industry average, Nothnagle said.
“And we’re going to use the great cool Idaho air to cool our data centers for at least half of the year,” she said.
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