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Bigger data centers are coming to Washington, and they're bringing some real tradeoffs.

More strain on the electrical grid and added pressure on water systems that are already stretched thin by years of drought.

Yet some say data centers are also badly needed for tax revenue and jobs.

We headed to central Washington, where a local utility is gearing up for the county's first data center and heard from a lawmaker and a resident on what the next data center boom means for them.

In Malaga, not far from the Columbia River, bulldozers flatten land to make way for another massive building that Microsoft plans to fill with servers and fans.

A total of three buildings is planned for this site.

It's the first data center in the Chelan County Public Utility District.

The PUD is in a unique position where it sells most of its hydropower on the open market.

We are a surplus generator, which means we generate more electricity than we need locally.

And we use about 20% of it on average locally.

The PUD's board requires any facilities that consume large amounts of power must find that electricity from an outside source.

Our board has just said we're not willing right now to sell that energy to a data center.

And our customers have been very vocal about that.

They've been very concerned about using up the excess hydropower for large loads that could be built really quickly.

So that's the concern.

They can be built quickly and then want to make sure that we have the capacity for the years for load growth here first.

According to Microsoft, at full operation, this data center site could draw as much as 150MW at any one time.

The tech company says they will bring in clean power from outside the region.

Over the last two decades, construction of data centers is one bright spot in the industry, says Matthew Hepner, East Wenatchee Council member, an IBEW union official.

He also says central Washington towns have benefited economically from the larger tax base data centers have brought in.

Hepner wants to see the state build a lot more clean energy to supply the growing data center industry.

If we have the energy, we will get the economic development that goes with it.

And when we do have, when they are coming here, then we get to set the rules for both workers as well as the environment.

If we drive data centers out from here, they're going to go to the south and they're just going to run the entire thing on diesel.

We're still going to be using the internet, and those data centers are still going to be operating 24 hours a day, you know, spewing more carbon.

About ten miles south of Quincy, Jacque and Alan Rasmussen are feeling the personal impacts of data center growth in the area.

They're trying to stop a 230 kilowatt transmission line from ending up in their front yard.

Grant County PUD says they need to build a new 32-mile transmission line to carry more electricity.

I know that they need the power for the data centers.

I understand that, and that's - but ratepayers, we're paying with our rates increasing for this line, and some of us, we're paying with our homes.

The Rasmussen's want the PUD to use alternative routes that go through a larger percentage of public land.

If that doesn't happen, they plan to move.

We say public use for public good.

And so even though, like, this power is benefiting the data centers that are in Quincy, we live lots of miles away from that and it's having a huge impact on us and our lives.

I'm Paris Jackson.

Thank you for watching The Newsfeed.

To see this week's stories on data centers, visit CascadePBS.org/thenewsfeed