County review of Bonner data center delayed again
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) Missoula County’s review of a data center proposed in Bonner has been cancelled for a third time due to the applicant’s delay in providing information required by the county.
The Missoula County Consolidated Land Use Board won't review a Bonner data center application during its July 1 hearing, because the project developer “is continuing to finalize materials,” according to a Missoula County Voice post issued on Wednesday. Unlike previous rounds of back-and-forth between the county and the developer, the presentation has not been rescheduled.
The Consolidated Land Use Board will determine whether the data center would be compatible with the neighborhood across the highway, which includes an elementary school, and whether various environmental issues could be avoided or mitigated. Those issues include additional traffic, noise, lights or added heat. But first, Missoula County planner Jennie Dixon must ensure the data center proposal passes muster.
The data center applicant, Krambu Inc., was originally scheduled to have a hearing on May 6, after announcing in March its interest in turning the Bonner Mill planer building into a data center. But after Krambu’s first and second applications for a special exception were found to be incomplete, the May 6 and a subsequent June 3 hearings were cancelled.
Before the May 6 hearing, Dixon wrote a letter on April 17 telling Gordon Dobler, the developer with Idaho-based Dobler Engineering, that the first application was too vague, and the county needed better information by April 28, particularly about equipment on the building's exterior and the associated noise, lights and hours of operation. She also needed more information about Krambu’s cooling towers, such as how much water they’d require and whether the operation would add to Missoula’s growing heat island.
After receiving Dobler’s second application on April 28, Dixon replied the next day, saying the application had “substantially improved,” particularly the information about the cooling towers. But information on noise and lighting was still missing. And Dixon wasn’t convinced by random photos Dobler included from Krambu’s facility in Washington state that there would be no heat-island effect, especially for neighbors living just across the street. Without this information, Dixon pushed the hearing back to July 1.
“With materials submitted thus far, I do not have enough information to make a favorable recommendation to the Land Use Board on the special exception. My goal is to assist you in preparing an application that will address all potential concerns that might be raised in review of the special exception,” Dixon wrote in her April 29 letter to Dobler.
Dobler submitted his third application on May 11. Cooling towers would be built outside the planer building, putting them closer to the property line and the neighbors across the street. According to the application, the typical cooler generates about 55 decibels at the source, similar to a small residential air conditioning unit.
For the initial phase of development, Dobler predicts he’d need three cooling towers, each using around 16,000 gallons of water per month. The coolers would be purged every four to six months with “a total volume of 4000-5000 gallons of water per year being discharged to a pretreatment facility.”
Steven Wood, Krambu’s CEO, told a crowd in Bonner on March 20 that the first phase of the data center would require 1 to 3 megawatts. But Missoula County’s website says the initial phase of the facility is expected to use approximately 7 megawatts, with the potential to expand to up to 29 megawatts, which is the estimated electrical capacity of the local grid. Beyond that, Krambu’s website has a July 22, 2025, press release that talks about developing a 100-megawatt “AI factory in Montana.”
If the data center grows, it will need more cooling towers. According to the application, 29 megawatts would require up to 10 towers, including redundant towers for backup.
If the Land Use Board eventually grants a special exception, the developers must still apply for a zoning compliance permit. The permit application must demonstrate compliance with the County's data center zoning regulations, including requirements for new renewable energy and e-waste recycling.
One of the biggest questions is what is the source of Krambu's electricity, although that's not a concern of the Consolidated Land Use Board . In 2022, the Missoula County Commissioners passed regulations requiring new large digital centers to provide their own energy from a renewable source. Hyperblock, a previous renter of the planer building, contracted with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ Selis' Ksanka Qlispe Dam to buy the huge amount of power needed to run its servers continuously.
Krambu may try the same thing, but so far, neither Krambu nor the dam operator, Energy Keepers, Inc., have said much. In a March 19 social media post, Energy Keepers said they do not comment on any ongoing commercial discussions.
“EKI would like to clarify that as a supplier of wholesale electricity to support Montana businesses we continually assess various commercial opportunities, including inquiries from potential large-scale energy consumers. We have no commitment to provide power to this or any other specific data center project,” the Energy Keepers wrote.
Meanwhile, local resistance to the data center continues to grow in parallel with bipartisan opposition to data centers nationwide. On the Missoula County Voice Bonner Data Center webpage, 280 citizens have posted comments, the vast majority of which oppose the data center.
One commenter, who identified themselves as a former city planner, highlighted the increased strain on the electrical grid, the 50,000 gallons of water consumed, and related threats to the vulnerable Blackfoot River as the data center expands to a 100-megawatt operation.
“Given my professional background in land-use planning, I understand the high legal threshold an applicant must meet to earn a Special Exception. An applicant must definitively prove complete operational compatibility with nearby residential properties and natural resources. This application fundamentally fails to meet that planning standard, posing direct and unmitigated risks to our local infrastructure, utility rate stability, and a fragile, newly restored ecosystem,” the commenter wrote.
The next Consolidated Land Use Board meeting would be Aug. 5, unless a special meeting is called earlier.
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.