Waving signs with slogans such as, “Farms are for food!! Not Data Centers!!,” a group of protesters in early August gathered outside Columbia High School in the eastern Washington town of Burbank.
This small community just south of where the Snake River flows into the Columbia River is becoming ground zero for the region’s fight over the construction of data centers. The Walla Walla Anti Data Center League was protesting outside an open house at a high school organized by Amazon Web Services to tout the positive impact of a proposed server warehouse.
The event, with its many informational placards, was a chance for Amazon to explain some of the details about the massive complex, which is proposed for a 134-acre site located a short distance...