The County Wants an Impact Study Before It Will Hear Your Data Center. Here Is What Is Actually In One.

A county planner tells a developer the board will not docket the application until it receives “an environmental impact study.” The developer’s first instinct is to price a National Environmental Policy Act review. That is the wrong instinct, and it costs months.

A privately financed data center on private land, buying power from a regulated or public utility and water from a municipal system, has no federal nexus. NEPA applies to major federal actions. No federal permit, no federal money, no federal land means no Environmental Impact Statement and no federal template to work from. What the county is asking for is something else entirely: a package of technical studies defined by the local zoning ordinance, procured by the applicant from a consultant, and reviewed by the county’s own engineer.

That is why the scope varies so much. Two ordinances written in 2026 set property line noise limits 20 decibels apart. There is no national number, because there is no national instrument. This post walks the actual contents of a county level data center impact study package, the dated moratorium map across Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska, the Sedgwick County interim development control and the Equus Beds aquifer underneath the land that has been optioned there, what a Kansas water use permit actually requires, and what each side should be asking for.

Kansas water rights get their own treatment below, because the county study and the state water right are two different obligations and clearing one does nothing for the other. Generator air permitting and the state level version of this question are covered elsewhere: see data center water use permits for the general water use picture, backup generator air permit requirements, and the New York state level moratorium scope.

What is a data center environmental impact study?

It is not a NEPA Environmental Impact Statement. It is a package of technical studies a county requires as a condition of a conditional use permit: water feasibility, baseline noise, generator air, stormwater, environmental and community impact, and decommissioning cost. Lincoln County, Nebraska will not treat a conditional use permit application as complete until every one of them is received.

The instrument stack runs bottom to top. State law grants counties the police power to zone (in Kansas, county zoning resolutions under K.S.A. 19-2901 et seq., with enforcement under K.S.A. 19-2963). The county’s zoning resolution then lists data centers as permitted, conditional or prohibited by district. In most counties across the three states, data centers were unlisted, or buried inside a generic industrial or utility category. That gap is the reason the moratoria exist.

A moratorium is a temporary suspension of application acceptance and permit issuance, adopted so a planning commission can draft the regulation that was missing. Harvey County, Kansas said so in its own resolution: the pause “allows the Harvey County Planning, Zoning and Environmental Department, as well as the Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals, time to research, consider or create regulations governing future development concerning data centers” (Harvey County).

Developers underweight what comes after the pause. The ordinance written during the moratorium is the binding constraint, because it converts every stated public concern into an application completeness requirement, and then converts the approved studies into enforceable permit conditions with annual reporting.

Does NEPA apply to a private data center?

Generally no. NEPA attaches to major federal actions. A privately funded data center on private land with no federal permit has no federal nexus and no EIS obligation. A nexus does arise with a Corps of Engineers Section 404 permit, siting on federal land, an FAA obstruction determination, or federal funding above the 50 percent presumption threshold set in 2025.

Take each in turn. A Clean Water Act Section 404 permit, triggered when construction fills or dredges jurisdictional waters or wetlands, is by far the most common federal hook, and it is also the one developers most often engineer around by siting to avoid jurisdictional features. Reporting in 2026 documented dozens of data centers proceeding without Corps permits after jurisdictional determinations found no waters of the United States (E&E News). Siting on Bureau of Land Management, Forest Service or Department of Energy land, or crossing it with a transmission line or water pipeline, requires a federal right of way grant. Direct federal financial support creates a nexus, though a 2025 executive order established a presumption that projects receiving less than 50 percent of total capital cost from federal sources are not major federal actions (American Bar Association). FAA Form 7460-1 obstruction evaluation applies near airports. Section 106 historic review and Endangered Species Act consultation attach to a federal action; they do not create one independently.

What counties are building, in effect, is a local substitute for NEPA. The Lincoln County, Nebraska draft literally requires “a professionally prepared environmental and community impact analysis” identifying floodplains, wetlands, waters, and cultural and historic resources on the property and within 500 feet of the boundary (North Platte Post, Section 8.22 draft dated 2026-07-16). That is an EIS shaped deliverable produced under county authority.

What triggers a data center impact study requirement?

Size thresholds, not intent. The Chester and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania model guide applies above 100,000 square feet and adds a renewable procurement condition above 50 MW. Lincoln County, Nebraska sets a 10 acre minimum site and exempts only ancillary rooms under 1 MW. Any increase in computing capacity requires an amended conditional use permit.

Threshold type	Value	Source instrument
Ordinance scope, floor area	over 100,000 sq ft	Chester/Montgomery PA Data Center Ordinance Guide v1.0
Minimum lot, above that floor area	5 acres	Chester/Montgomery PA Guide
Minimum site size	10 acres	Lincoln County NE draft Sec. 8.22
Renewable procurement trigger	over 50 MW grid connected, at least 10 percent via power purchase agreement, not RECs	Chester/Montgomery PA Guide
Facility typology	ancillary/micro under 1 MW; edge 1 to 10 MW; hyperscale 50 to 100+ MW	Lincoln County NE draft
Large load grid regulation (contrast state)	75 MW at a single site	Texas SB 6
State tax incentive	$250 million investment plus 20 jobs	Kansas SB 98
Land disturbance	1 acre triggers NPDES Construction General Permit and a SWPPP	Federal Clean Water Act
Expansion	any increase in building area, electrical demand, computing capacity or site area	Lincoln County NE draft

The Lincoln County expansion clause deserves emphasis on both sides of the table. A phased campus cannot grow under the original approval. An increase in computing capacity alone, with no new building, requires an amended permit and therefore an amended study package. For a county, that is the control it wanted. For a developer, it converts the impact study from a one time transaction into a recurring one, and it needs to be in the pro forma.

Colocation and edge operators are the group most likely to mis-scope this. Many assume they fall below the thresholds. Lincoln County’s draft applies to all data centers and exempts only the ancillary case: under 1 MW and under 25 percent of a building’s gross floor area. Run the threshold determination before you scope anything else.

How much water does a data center actually use per day?

At average industry water usage effectiveness, an evaporatively cooled facility consumes roughly 12,000 gallons per day per megawatt. A 100 MW facility on an efficient hyperscale evaporative design runs 400,000 to 550,000 gallons per day, with the IEA estimating about 530,000 for a 100 MW US facility. A 150 MW hyperscale evaporative facility runs about 340,000 gallons per day, lower per MW because efficiency, not size, is the driver. A fully evaporative 100 MW site with no efficiency measures exceeds 1 million gallons per day. A closed loop, direct to chip design consumes near zero for cooling in operation (Construction Physics, Nona Technologies summarizing IEA and LBNL, Microsoft).

Never quote one of those numbers without the facility size and the cooling type attached to it. The spread between near zero and more than a million gallons per day at the same nameplate megawatts is the entire reason a county demands a study rather than a number. It is also the reason a developer with a closed loop design should want the study: it is the only document that proves the design choice was made.

One sourcing caveat on those per-day figures. The Department of Energy and national laboratory literature reports water usage effectiveness in liters per kilowatt-hour, not gallons per megawatt-day. The numbers above come from secondary sources converting and summarizing that work, and no primary-source gallons-per-megawatt-day value has been verified. Use them for order of magnitude and use the facility’s own design basis for anything that goes into an application.

Microsoft’s closed loop, zero evaporation design saves more than 125 million liters per year per facility versus an evaporative design (Data Center Dynamics). Oklahoma has now made that design close to mandatory for groundwater users. SB 259, the Groundwater Modernization Act, takes effect 2026-11-01 and prohibits data centers from using groundwater in open air evaporative cooling or any system that consumes groundwater through evaporation without recirculation. To obtain a groundwater permit, an Oklahoma data center must demonstrate low consumptive cooling technology such as closed loop or dielectric immersion (Oklahoma House of Representatives; SB 259). That is a state statute turning a technology choice into a permit condition, and the demonstration is an engineering deliverable with a date on it.

What is in a data center water feasibility study?

Projected demand including seasonal fluctuation, source identification, a geologic map of the project area within at least a one mile radius, an inventory of all existing and proposed wells within 1,000 feet, an inventory of all surface waters and known point sources of pollution within 1,000 feet, a long term safe yield determination, a finding of no adverse impact on nearby wells, the recycling or release pathway, and the preparer’s signed qualifications.

A few elements inside that list carry more weight than their line item length suggests.

Source hierarchy. The Chester and Montgomery model language prohibits private wells or direct surface withdrawal as the primary cooling source if a public source is available. Where a public source is used, the county wants written certification from the utility that it has the capacity to supply the stated demand. Lincoln County requires the same signed letter for electric service.

Closed loop is not a pass. Lincoln County requires the applicant to state, for closed loop systems, the volume lost from the loop and the volume required to replenish it. A closed loop design reduces the number. It does not remove the study.

Discharge. The county wants the quantity of wastewater generated, explicitly including water discharged as part of the HVAC system, and how that water will be recycled, treated or released. Untreated wastewater is prohibited from discharge to stormwater systems or surface waters. In practice, blowdown quality is governed by the state discharge permit: total dissolved solids, cycles of concentration, and any biocide or corrosion inhibitor limits.

Drought. A drought response plan demonstrating compliance with state, water supplier and local drought declarations. Not further specified in either surveyed ordinance, which means the consultant proposes the framework.

Ongoing. Lincoln County requires annual water and wastewater sampling and annual water consumption reports to the county planning office for the life of the facility.

The state layer runs in parallel and is not satisfied by the county process. In Kansas, a non municipal withdrawal requires a permit to appropriate water from the Kansas Department of Agriculture, Division of Water Resources, with Groundwater Management District allocation rules on top. Note also that buying municipal water is not a compliance shortcut at the county level, because the county requires a capacity certification from the utility regardless of who holds the water right. Oklahoma reporting has documented that municipally supplied data center water stays largely outside the state’s groundwater reporting net even after SB 259 (Investigate Midwest).

What noise standard applies to a data center?

There is no national number. Two 2026 instruments set property line limits 20 dBA apart. The Chester and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania model sets 45 dBA / 60 dBC day and 40 dBA / 50 dBC night. The Lincoln County, Nebraska draft sets 65 dBA / 75 dBC day (7:00 am to 9:59 pm) and 55 dBA / 65 dBC night (10:00 pm to 6:59 am). A 20 dBA spread is a factor of 100 in sound energy. Read the local ordinance.

That variance is the point, and it is the single strongest argument against buying a generic noise study. A design that passes in Lincoln County fails by two orders of magnitude of sound energy against the Pennsylvania model, at the same property line, with the same equipment.

The method language, where it exists, comes from a specific place. The Franklin County, Indiana draft ordinance cites ANSI/ASA S12.9-2005/Part 4 (R2020), Quantities and Procedures for Description and Measurement of Environmental Sound, Part 4: Noise Assessment and Prediction of Long-term Community Response, by name. The Chester and Montgomery guide, by contrast, cites no ANSI, ASTM or ISO standard at all; its only named consensus standard is NFPA 855 for battery storage. If you are a county copying model language, that is a gap worth closing on purpose rather than by accident.

What a defensible baseline survey looks like:

• Pre construction ambient sound and vibration, measured at multiple times of day, at the property line and at the nearest sensitive receptors.
• ANSI S1.4 Type 1 precision instrumentation. L90 for residual ambient; Leq and Ldn for assessment.
• Predicted operational levels modeled at every property line and the nearest receptor, accounting for substations, on site generation and all accessory uses, using octave band analysis and full spectrum modeling. No surveyed ordinance names a propagation model; ISO 9613-2 is the conventional choice.
• Post construction verification, no sooner than one month and no more than 12 months after the first Certificate of Occupancy.

One rule inside the model language makes the baseline the highest leverage document in the entire package. Where the measured pre construction baseline already exceeds the ordinance limit, the standard flips: any increase above the established baseline “shall be deemed a violation unless specifically authorized as a condition of approval.” An overstated baseline will not survive review. An understated baseline becomes a permanent operating constraint measured at every property line for the life of the facility. Existing industrial neighbors should note the corollary: a data center’s baseline survey measures them, and their emissions become someone else’s regulatory baseline unless they have their own documentation first.

Two gaps worth naming honestly. Neither surveyed ordinance specifies a tonal penalty (the conventional +5 dB adjustment) or a prominent discrete tone test, and neither sets a numeric vibration limit, no peak particle velocity criterion and no VdB. Mitigation for vibration is qualitative: isolation, enclosures, indoor housing. A competent acoustical scope closes both proactively rather than arguing about them after occupancy.

Why do data center ordinances require both dBA and dBC?

Because chillers, cooling towers, dry coolers, air handlers, transformers and generators produce strong low frequency content that A-weighting deliberately discounts. The Chester and Montgomery guide notes that C-weighting “may add 10 to 20 decibels of additional perceptible noise beyond the A-weighted measurement.” ANSI/ASA S12.9 Part 4 Annex D specifically addresses sounds with strong low frequency content. A large dBC minus dBA arithmetic difference is the flag.

This is the mechanism behind most data center noise complaints that pass an A-weighted compliance test and still generate a docket full of residents. The A-weighted number describes what a sound level meter says. The dBC minus dBA difference describes what a neighbor hears through a closed window at 2:00 am. Some ordinances shift the compliance point off the property line entirely: the Prince William County, Virginia approach holds facility sound to no more than 3 dBA above pre construction ambient at any sensitive receptor property line, and third party data center noise studies commonly target 55 dBA Ldn and 68 dBC at the nearest residence (Lyver data center noise study).

Noise is not a fringe concern in this debate. In Gallup’s 2026 open ended data on why respondents oppose local data centers, pollution accounted for 16 percent of stated reasons, and noise alone was 9 percent of them, larger than air and water contamination combined at 2 percent (Gallup).

Do data center backup generators need an air permit?

Usually yes, at the state level, and the county’s hours of operation condition determines its shape. In Kansas, K.A.R. 28-19-300 requires a construction permit or approval before beginning construction or modification when the project’s potential to emit increase exceeds specified levels, with a Class II operating permit under K.A.R. 28-19-546. KDHE applies EPA’s guidance on calculating potential to emit for emergency generators. NOx is normally the controlling pollutant for diesel fleets.

The important structural point for both audiences: the county ordinance and the state air permit are two separate obligations on two separate clocks, and the county condition drives the state outcome. A county that caps non emergency generator run time at 100 hours per year for maintenance and readiness testing, and prohibits peak shaving and grid export, has just written the assumption the state permit is built on. Peak shaving destroys the emergency engine potential to emit assumption and can push a site over major source thresholds.

The Chester and Montgomery model requires EPA Tier 4 engines regardless of use, and is candid that the underlying federal floor is lower: prime power generators operating a facility off grid must meet Tier 4, while emergency only generators are federally required to meet only Tier 2 or Tier 3. A county can impose Tier 4 anyway, and this one does.

One real gap: no surveyed county ordinance requires dispersion modeling. No AERMOD, no NAAQS demonstration, no stack height standard. If the state permit requires modeling, the developer discovers that after the county process rather than during it. Cooling tower PM10 and PM2.5 drift is a similarly overlooked permitted emission source alongside the generators (Trinity Consultants). Full potential to emit mechanics are covered in the backup generator air permit post.

What happens if a developer builds without the required study?

Under K.S.A. 19-2963, a Kansas county may declare a zoning violation a misdemeanor punishable by a fine not to exceed $500 for each offense, and may provide that each day’s violation constitutes a separate offense. The county counselor may also institute injunction, mandamus or other appropriate action to prevent construction, correct or abate the violation, or prevent occupancy.

Two phrases in that statute matter commercially. The daily offense clause means the exposure is not $500, it is $500 times the number of days. And the statute reaches a building “proposed to be erected,” which means the county does not have to wait for construction to start. K.S.A. 12-761 gives the parallel planning act remedy.

In practice the permit level consequences bite harder than the fine:

• The application is never docketed. Lincoln County’s standard is that an application is not considered complete until every listed study has been received. An incomplete package does not get denied. It does not get heard, and the calendar keeps running.
• Permit revocation for missing financial assurance. Lincoln County’s draft revokes the conditional use permit if the required decommissioning guarantee is not posted within 30 days of approval.
• Baseline exceedance as a strict trip wire. Under the model noise language, where the baseline already exceeds the limit, any increase over baseline is a violation absent a specific condition of approval.
• County forced mitigation without a violation. The zoning officer may require noise mitigation when studies show the use is approaching limits.
• Third party review at applicant expense. Both surveyed instruments preserve the county’s right to hire an independent professional to review the applicant’s studies and bill the applicant.

Oklahoma adds a state layer. HB 2992, the Data Center Customer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026, effective 2026-07-01, requires developers to notify adjoining landowners, county commissioners and the Oklahoma Corporation Commission within 60 days of acquiring land for a qualifying project.

When do the current Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska data center moratoria expire?

Sedgwick County’s interim development control now runs through 2026-12-24: on September 2, 2026 the Board of County Commissioners adopted a third 90-day-class extension rather than let the control lapse (KWCH). Tulsa expires no later than 2026-12-31. El Dorado’s city moratorium runs through 2026-11-30. Otoe County, Nebraska runs up to one year from 2026-05-19. Topeka expires 2027-07-14. Harvey County runs through 2028-12-31. Saline County ends 2029-03-01. Leavenworth County let its 90 day pause lapse in early August 2026 with no replacement adopted.

Jurisdiction	Instrument	Adopted	Expires	Study language	Source
Sedgwick County, KS (unincorporated)	Interim Development Control adopted under the Wichita-Sedgwick County Unified Zoning Code, suspending acceptance and consideration of Conditional Use Permits and Building Permits for applications involving data centers. Not an ordinance and not a prohibition	2026-01-14, indexed as Resolution 014-2026, initially about three months; extended 2026-03-04 to 2026-06-11; extended 2026-05-06 through 2026-09-10; extended a third time 2026-09-02	Through 2026-12-24 per the third extension adopted 2026-09-02. The county planning page lagged that vote, still showing the superseded 2026-09-10 date days later, so cite the commission action rather than the page	No study package exists yet, because the replacement zoning has not been drafted. The county page states verbatim that “the term data center is not defined in the Wichita-Sedgwick County Unified Zoning Code… any data center land use is evaluated on a case-by-case basis,” against Office General, Utility Minor and Utility Major, or Storage Outdoor as a Principal Use. Zero data center applications on file	wichita.gov/datacenters - Sedgwick County - KMUW - KWCH
Harvey County, KS (unincorporated)	County commission resolution (Res. 2026-4), unanimous	2026-01-13, effective on legal publication	2028-12-31; commission may rescind or extend at any time	Purpose is to give the Planning, Zoning and Environmental Department, Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals time “to research, consider or create regulations.” No application had been filed.	harveycounty.gov
Saline County, KS (unincorporated)	Temporary moratorium on acceptance of new applications, 4-0; covers data centers, nuclear generation and hydrogen facilities	2026-03-17	2029-03-01 (three years; may be shortened or lengthened)	A pause so the planning commission can take up each topic and propose development regulations.	Salina311 · KSN
Topeka, KS	City ordinance, 12 month moratorium on data centers and battery storage, unanimous; amended at the 2026-08-11 council meeting to restrict utility connections inside and outside city limits	2026-07-14; amendment adopted 2026-08-11, reported 2026-08-12	2027-07-14	Adopted “to allow the City adequate time to study, review, and determine how to address the public health and safety aspects” of data center development. The August amendment closed an administrative exception that would have allowed extending utility service outside city limits. It concerns the City’s own utility-extension authority; no source ties the amendment to Evergy. Shawnee County acted separately on 2026-07-02 with a zoning framework rather than a moratorium.	WIBW · WIBW amendment
El Dorado, KS (Butler County)	City moratorium. A separate citizen petition under K.S.A. 12-3013 (700+ signatures, certified by the county clerk 2026-06-25) sought to ban high impact data centers and Tier 2/3 battery storage; the City Commission invalidated the petition and voted 2026-07-13 to seek a declaratory judgment	Petition received 2026-06-22, certified 2026-06-25; city action 2026-07-13	City moratorium through 2026-11-30. Petition validity pending in Butler County District Court, argued mid-August 2026	The city moratorium exists to “allow the process to proceed without considering a development proposal for the uses described in the petition ordinance.” The petition sought a prohibition, not a study requirement.	City of El Dorado Official Statements · KSN
Tulsa, OK	City ordinance suspending acceptance of applications, processing and issuance of building permits for data center use, with emergency clause. Introduced at 365 days, amended to nine months at committee	2026-03-25, under an emergency clause	No later than 2026-12-31, and earlier if the city adopts replacement data center zoning first	Gives the Tulsa Planning Office time to review zoning standards, evaluating noise and odors as well as water and energy usage. Final planning recommendations are due to the full council in November 2026. Project Anthem Phases 1 and 2, Meta’s roughly $1 billion, 340 acre east Tulsa project, is the named exception. Includes an exception and appeal process.	City of Tulsa Council Documents item 49527 · KOSU · KTUL
Otoe County, NE	County board suspension of permits for new data centers for up to one year; planning commission recommended 2026-04-17	2026-05-19	Up to 2027-05, tied to a full comprehensive development plan update	The comprehensive plan is a decade old, defines data centers but does not place them on the land use map. Scope extended to adjacent power plants.	1011 Now · Flatwater Free Press
Madison County, NE	Not a moratorium. Zoning amendment making data centers a special permit use, adding oversight and a public comment step	Adoption date not verified in available public reporting	No expiry; permanent regulation, not a pause	Special permit process “makes room for public input.” Study scope not enumerated in available reporting.	Nebraska Public Media
Lincoln County, NE	No moratorium. Commissioners voted a moratorium down on 2026-07-13, reasoning the comprehensive plan already provided adequate control, and drafted Section 8.22, Data Centers, a nine page conditional use permit standard instead	Moratorium rejected 2026-07-13; draft Sec. 8.22 dated 2026-07-16	Not applicable; the clock is the zoning adoption process	The most study explicit document in the three state survey. An application is not complete until the applicant submits noise mitigation, decommissioning, water consumption, wastewater, electric consumption, emergency response, a road agreement, an environmental and community impact analysis, and a community benefits agreement.	North Platte Post · KNOP

Three sourcing notes, because they matter to anyone relying on this table. First, on Tulsa: the ordinance PDF itself could not be retrieved. The council document index confirms the ordinance title, the original 365 day term, the amendment to nine months, the emergency clause and the 2026-03-25 adoption date, and the nine month term and the 2026-12-31 outside date are confirmed by three independent outlets. Two traps ride along with that row. The ordinance caption still reads “365-DAY MORATORIUM,” which is stale pre-amendment draft text and is why several outlets reported a year; District 4 Councilor Laura Bellis introduced 365 days, District 8 Councilor Phil Lakin objected in the 2026-03-25 committee meeting, and Bellis amended the term to nine months before the unanimous vote that day. And Project Clydesdale, the Owasso-area project frequently described as an exemption, is not one. It sits on Tulsa County land near Owasso, outside the city ordinance’s reach entirely. Project Anthem is the actual carve-out. The Section 5 self-repeal language is paraphrased here and never quoted, because the council-file PDFs would not render and the verbatim text is not independently confirmed; the codified ordinance number could not be located, and every source references only council file 26-196 and its final version 26-196-3. And the moratorium picture in Nebraska is broader than these rows: at least 12 counties had moratoria as of July 2026, with Logan County the twelfth (Butler, Box Butte, Custer, Dundy, Furnas, Hayes, Harlan, Johnson, Kearney, Otoe, Seward and Logan), and Gage County’s planning and zoning commission has recommended an 18 month pause (Nebraska Public Media).

Also on the near calendar: Oklahoma’s SB 259 takes effect 2026-11-01, and a 368 MW conditional use permit application (Worldwide Mission Critical) was set for the Kearney, Nebraska Planning Commission agenda on 2026-08-21, on a site that already carries 100 MW (Rock 101.5).

Sedgwick County has a data center pause, and it is not called a moratorium

Is Sedgwick County’s data center moratorium actually a moratorium?

No. It is an Interim Development Control adopted under the Wichita-Sedgwick County Unified Zoning Code on January 14, 2026. It suspends acceptance and consideration of Conditional Use Permits and Building Permits for applications involving data centers. It is not an ordinance, and it does not prohibit the use (wichita.gov/datacenters).

That distinction is worth holding onto, because it changes what a developer is waiting for. A prohibition is a policy outcome. An interim development control is a procedural hold on the application window while the Metropolitan Area Planning Department drafts standards that do not exist yet. The county’s consultant, Berkley Group, LLC, contracted through the City of Wichita, laid out five paths in an April 15, 2026 policy and regulatory options memo: prohibition, allowing data centers in certain overlay districts, a conditional use process, a by-right process with no public meetings, or doing nothing. Four of those five end with data centers permitted in some form.

One naming correction, because national aggregators keep getting it wrong. Several outlets report that the Wichita City Council extended the city’s moratorium. No separate City of Wichita ordinance or resolution could be located. The only sourceable instrument is the Sedgwick County Board of County Commissioners’ interim development control. Wichita and Sedgwick County share one planning department and one Unified Zoning Code, which is almost certainly where the conflation comes from. Write “Sedgwick County’s interim development control.” If you are relying on a city-specific instrument for a legal position, verify it against a primary source first, because we could not find one.

Resolution numbering is only partly nailed down. The adopting document is indexed by the county as resolution 014-2026, adopted 1/14/26, but the posted PDF is an image-only scan with no machine-readable text, so the number comes from the county’s own file title rather than the document body. The resolution numbers for the March 4 and May 6 extensions could not be located at all.

When does the Sedgwick County, Kansas data center moratorium expire?

Through December 24, 2026. On September 2, 2026, days before the control was set to lapse, the Board of County Commissioners adopted a third extension, with planning staff again asking for more time to finish the data center rules (KWCH). One caution for anyone verifying this independently: the county’s own planning page lagged the vote, still carrying the superseded “through September 10, 2026” language days afterward. The commission action, not the web page, is the operative record.

The adoption sequence: adopted January 14, 2026 for roughly three months, extended March 4 to June 11, extended May 6 through September 10, and extended a third time September 2 through December 24. Three extensions, each roughly 90 days. The pattern is now established: the county buys time in one-quarter increments while the replacement zoning gets written.

And the county has nothing in front of it. Verbatim from the county’s own news release: “Sedgwick County has no data center applications on file at this time” (Sedgwick County). The pause is not holding back a queue. It is holding the window shut while the code catches up.

What happens if the control expires without replacement zoning?

That question nearly got answered in September: no replacement zoning was adopted before the stated September 11 expiry, and the commission chose the extension instead. The stakes have not changed, because if the control ever does lapse without new rules, the application window reopens into the same regulatory vacuum that existed in January. The Wichita-Sedgwick County Unified Zoning Code contains no definition of “data center.” Verbatim from the county page: “The term data center is not defined in the Wichita-Sedgwick County Unified Zoning Code… any data center land use is evaluated on a case-by-case basis.”

The page names the three categories a data center gets shoehorned into today: Office, General; Utility, Minor and Utility, Major; and Storage, Outdoor as a Principal Use. Those are the fallbacks. A hyperscale campus with a 200 MW load, a generator yard and an industrial cooling water draw would be evaluated against a use category written for an office building, a substation or an outdoor storage lot.

For a developer, that is not the opportunity it looks like. Case-by-case evaluation under a mismatched use category is where conditions get invented on the record at a public hearing, and it is the least predictable posture a county can be in. For a county, it is the reason the pause exists.

The notice clock is the part of this story nobody else is writing

Kansas requires written notice mailed at least 20 days before a planning commission can hold a hearing on a zoning text amendment (K.S.A. 12-757). County planning staff told commissioners on May 6 that they asked for the extension specifically “in order to meet state notice requirements for zoning changes” (KMUW).

The arithmetic told the story in advance. Through late August no Metropolitan Area Planning Commission hearing on a data center text amendment appeared anywhere on the public docket, and the last posted work product was a draft comprehensive plan language document dated June 11, 2026. With days left and no hearing noticed, replacement zoning could not realistically be heard, recommended and adopted before the September expiry, which left two live outcomes: a third extension, or an expiry back into the January vacuum. On September 2 the commission chose the extension. The same clock now runs against December 24: a text amendment still needs a noticed MAPC hearing at least 20 days out, a recommendation, and a commission adoption before that date, or the county faces the identical choice a fourth time.

Commissioner positions on the record are not uniformly restrictive, and they read differently now that the extension pattern has confirmed them. All from the May 6 meeting, via KMUW. Ryan Baty: “We can make reasonable policy with all the resources we have and all the information coming to us. We don’t need that long to make a reasonable policy decision.” Baty called the three-year bans in Harvey and Saline counties “a political decision, it’s not a practical policy decision.” Jeff Blubaugh: “we can continue to kick it out every 90 days if we don’t have the answers.” Pete Meitzner framed the 90 day increments as signaling that the county did not plan to discourage economic development through long delays. Stephanie Wise anticipated needing a further extension to review planning’s eventual suggestions.

Pressure runs the other way too. Kansas Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi, who represents Andale, urged the county to adopt a three-year moratorium, and separately tried and failed to legislate a three-year ban on data center development in counties that had experienced a drought within the prior year. That drought trigger is the clearest statement anyone in Kansas has made that this is a water fight wearing zoning clothes.

What is already under contract in western Sedgwick County

More than 1,000 acres across two companies, and the ground sits over the Equus Beds. KMUW reviewed Sedgwick County property records and reported that Monarch Energy has more than 300 acres under purchase and sale agreements signed in summer and fall 2025 with two owners, between 215th Street West and 183rd West off 53rd North near Colwich and Andale. NextEra Energy holds options on close to 800 acres from more than 10 owners, signed between July 2025 and January 2026 on a three-year option term, between 311th Street West and 279th West off 21st Street North near Garden Plain (KMUW).

KMUW describes the plats as “deep in the heart of fertile farmland that’s split by the Cowskin Creek and fed by the Equus Beds aquifer.” Sellers were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, which is why no project details are public and why the landowners themselves have limited visibility into what the permitting exposure on their own ground looks like.

Battery energy storage in Sedgwick County runs on a separate clock

On approximately March 11, 2026 the county commission adopted a distinct, year-long interim development control for Battery Energy Storage Systems. It is a separate instrument with its own expiry, and it is not covered by the data center control. Anyone tracking one and not the other has half the picture. A campus pairing compute with on-site storage is subject to both.

The Equus Beds is the reason this county is arguing about zoning

What is the Equus Beds aquifer?

A roughly 1,400 square mile alluvial and glacial-outwash aquifer under south-central Kansas that supplies about 40 percent of the City of Wichita’s drinking water (USGS SIM 3192, City of Wichita). It fills a buried channel cut into Permian shale and Cretaceous Dakota sandstone, and it is managed by Groundwater Management District No. 2.

The geology matters to a well design. Near McPherson the high-yield basal gravel sits roughly 140 to 150 feet down, under an upper sand averaging 6 to 8 feet, capped by 10 to 35 feet of clay (Kansas Geological Survey). Saturated thickness reaches 250 feet in the USGS study area, with channel fill to 300 feet in the McPherson Channel and nearly 350 feet in the Ancestral Arkansas River Channel.

The management district is not the same footprint as the aquifer, and conflating the two produces wrong answers about whether a parcel is regulated. GMD2 covers 1,373 square miles across Harvey, McPherson, Reno and Sedgwick counties, formed in 1975, office in Halstead. The Sedgwick County portion is 110,080 acres in the northwest corner of the county, alongside 167,680 acres of western Harvey, 140,160 acres of southern McPherson and 460,800 acres of eastern Reno (KDA-DWR).

Acreage figures for the district conflict across official sources and should always carry a label. GMD2’s own About page states 1,100,776.5 acres. KDA-DWR states 500,480 acres under the 1975 management program and 878,720 acres from GMD2 data. The July 7, 2017 boundary expansion into Reno, McPherson and Sedgwick counties is the likely reconciliation. If you need one number, say roughly 1.1 million acres and attribute it to GMD2.

How much of Wichita’s water comes from the Equus Beds?

About 40 percent, down from about 60 percent. The City states its Water Utility “draws water from two sources: Cheney Reservoir and the Equus Beds aquifer,” currently at a 60 percent Cheney and 40 percent Equus Beds split. USGS confirms the split is engineered: Wichita “developed a strategy to reduce the amount of water it pumped from the Equus Beds aquifer from about 60 to 40 percent of the total usage.”

Say it that way. Calling the Equus Beds Wichita’s primary source without the qualifier is wrong on the current numbers, because Cheney is the larger share, and it understates the more interesting fact: the split is a deliberate 1993 management decision, not a natural condition. The city entered Stage 2 drought in August 2024 and recovered to Stage 1 in September 2025, on stage triggers that run against a 12-month moving average (City of Wichita).

How much water is actually in it?

USGS SIR 2014-5185 puts predevelopment storage at about 3,067,000 acre-feet for its study area, and about 962,000 acre-feet for the central part, with recovery to roughly 94 and 96 percent of those volumes by winter 2014 (USGS).

Hard boundary on that claim: those figures describe the roughly 165 to 189 square mile USGS monitoring area, not the 1,400 square mile aquifer. An aquifer-wide storage number could not be located. Anyone presenting 3.07 million acre-feet as the total volume of the Equus Beds is misreading the source, and that error shows up in advocacy material on both sides.

The recovery is real and it is local

This is the most important hydrologic fact in the file, and it cuts against a simple “the aquifer recovered” story. Compared with the 1993 record lows, winter 2013 water levels rose 4 to 6 feet higher inside the Wichita well field than across the surrounding 189 square mile study area. Storage in the well field exceeded the wider area by more than 3 billion gallons. Over the same period irrigation pumping rose 3 percent in the well field and 24 percent across the rest of the study area (USGS).

The aquifer recovered where one large user cut back, and it is being drawn down elsewhere. Wichita well field development began in the 1940s in southwest Harvey and northwest Sedgwick counties, irrigation development followed in the 1960s and 1970s, and 1993 was the record low for both water levels and storage since 1940. Add a large new industrial user and the question is which side of that line it lands on, and whose recovery it draws against.

What the Aquifer Storage and Recovery project is, and what it cannot do

Wichita’s ASR program diverts high-flow water from the Little Arkansas River, treats it to drinking water standards, and recharges it into the Equus Beds for two purposes: building drought-resilience recharge credits, and forming a hydraulic barrier against the Burrton oil-field brine plume and against saline intrusion from the Arkansas River.

• Phase I reached full-scale operation in 2007, with capacity to capture 10 million gallons per day of Little Arkansas River water plus indirect streambank-diversion well water. A separate 3 MGD figure describes recharge well and basin capacity. Those two numbers measure different things and should never be blended (USGS).
• Phase II became operational in April 2013 at a 30 MGD design capacity.
• Phase III funding approval appears on the Wichita City Council agenda for March 3, 2026, so Phase III is moving now (agenda).
• Total investment runs about $250 million. Through 2018, Phases I and II had recharged 3.6 billion gallons.
• ASR feeds the new plant. EPA’s WIFIA page for the Northwest Water Treatment Facility lists a $573.2 million total project cost, a $280.9 million WIFIA loan, 120 MGD capacity, replacing an 80-year-old plant and serving 500,000 people (EPA).

The limit is the part a siting team needs. ASR is not a reliable dry-year supply. In 2011 and 2012 Little Arkansas flows were too low to divert most of the time, and Wichita recharged only 37 million gallons across those two years, against an average of about 265 million gallons per year in 2007 to 2010. The recharge credit is largest when nobody needs it.

The Burrton chloride plume

Oil and gas brine disposal near Burrton began in the early 1930s. USGS states that water-level declines “likely enhanced movement of brines from past oil and gas activities near Burrton, Kansas, as well as natural saline water from the Arkansas River into the Wichita well field area.” The plume is migrating east-southeast and has already reached the City’s well field.

The Kansas Water Office runs the Equus Beds Chloride Plume Project with KDHE, funded at $50,000 per year in FY2023, FY2024 and FY2025 from the State Water Plan Fund, producing a Remedial Investigation Report and a Feasibility Study in January 2020 and a Feasibility Study Update in December 2024 (KWO). The regulatory threshold that matters to a permit application is 500 mg/L chloride under K.A.R. 5-22-15(b)(1), and it is not a background detail. It is a test an applicant has to clear.

What GMD2 can and cannot do to your application

GMD2 operates under the Kansas Groundwater Management District Act, K.S.A. 82a-1020 through 82a-1045, with district powers at 82a-1028, the management program at 82a-1029, intensive groundwater use control areas at 82a-1036 through 82a-1038, and local enhanced management areas at 82a-1041 (GMD2 statute index). It adopts a management program and proposes rules, promulgated as K.A.R. 5-22-1 through 5-22-17 and enforced by the Kansas Department of Agriculture.

GMD2 does not issue permits. The Chief Engineer decides. But one procedural rule gives the district more practical leverage than its formal role suggests: under K.A.R. 5-3-1b, an application is not considered complete until a final recommendation is received from the groundwater management district. GMD2 controls the clock even though it does not hold the pen.

The district operates on two stated principles, the Aquifer Safe-Yield Principle, limiting withdrawals to annual recharge, and the Groundwater Quality Principle.

The City of Wichita fought GMD2 over an existing right and did not win

If you want a realistic picture of how a new large industrial appropriation over this aquifer would be received, this is the case to read. Wichita’s ASR Phase II permit modification request went to a multi-year contested administrative hearing from 2018 to 2021, with GMD2 formally intervening against the City, and the Chief Engineer declined to accept the City’s proposed modification (wichitaasr.org). GMD2 then filed a Petition for Judicial Review on 07/21/2022, and the Division of Water Resources moved to dismiss on 08/12/2022 (KDA-DWR docket).

The municipal utility with more legal and institutional capacity than any private applicant in the region spent three years contesting a modification to a right it already held, and did not get it. A private developer’s brand new large industrial appropriation is a contested multi-year proceeding, not a form filing. The permitted acre-foot volume of the City’s ASR water right could not be located and would need a records request.

Kansas water permitting mechanics, for a facility or development manager

Who administers water rights in Kansas?

The Kansas Department of Agriculture, Division of Water Resources, through the Chief Engineer. K.S.A. 82a-706 is explicit: “The chief engineer shall enforce and administer the laws of this state pertaining to the beneficial use of water and shall control, conserve, regulate, allot and aid in the distribution of the water resources of the state… in accordance with the rights of priority of appropriation” (K.S.A. 82a-706).

The governing statute is the Kansas Water Appropriation Act, K.S.A. 82a-701 et seq. Kansas is a prior appropriation state, first in time and first in right, and it applies that doctrine to groundwater as well as surface water. Where uses share a priority date, the statutory order of preference is domestic, municipal, irrigation, industrial, recreational, water power. Industrial sits fifth of six.

Does a data center in Kansas need a water permit?

Yes, at any volume. Kansas gates water rights by type of use rather than quantity. K.S.A. 82a-728 exempts only domestic use, defined as household purposes, watering livestock and farm animals in operating a farm, and irrigation of not more than 2 acres of gardens, orchards and lawns. Industrial cooling is none of those, so an appropriation permit is required (K.S.A. 82a-728).

That is the single most common mis-assumption a siting team brings into Kansas. Teams arriving from states with a volume trigger go looking for the number, find nothing, and conclude there is no requirement. What they found is the absence of a threshold, not the absence of a permit.

What is the water permit volume threshold in Kansas?

There is no gallons-per-day threshold. The only volumetric shortcut is K.A.R. 5-25-15, a streamlined approval path for groundwater appropriations of up to 15 acre-feet per year, and only where all such approvals within a one-mile-radius circle stay at or under 15 acre-feet, spacing is met, no impairment occurs, and no intensive groundwater use control area order applies.

Fifteen acre-feet is about 4.9 million gallons per year. A 100 MW evaporatively cooled facility can move that in ten days. The streamlined path is irrelevant at hyperscale, and it is a lighter review rather than an absence of permitting even at the small end.

Is the Equus Beds closed to new water rights?

Partly, and the honest answer runs three layers deep. Two subareas are closed by standing order. Outside them, the district is open but gated by a calculated safe-yield ceiling. And the Chief Engineer has already suspended processing of new appropriation applications across a large block of GMD2 three separate times.

Layer 1, the closed subareas. The McPherson intensive groundwater use control area was initiated by GMD2’s board in February 1979 and closed by an order issued March 28, 1980 imposing two corrective controls, verbatim: “1. That the IGUCA area shall be closed to new appropriations excepting domestic, temporary and short-term permits; 2. That water flow meters shall be installed on all groundwater wells excepting domestic and temporary wells.” The Chief Engineer reviewed it in 2016 and issued Findings and Conclusions plus an Amendment Order on February 26, 2020, correcting the boundary description and removing some administrative reporting. The closure was not rescinded and remains in effect (KDA-DWR). The Burrton intensive groundwater use control area was initiated in June 1982 over chloride contamination from oil-field brine, with hearings in August 1982 and February 1984 and an order issued June 1984 (KDA-DWR).

There is a fourth layer of geography that almost never appears in coverage of this topic. KDA-DWR publishes a “Closed and Restricted Areas Near GMD No. 2” map dated July 7, 2017 that plots the McPherson IGUCA, the Burrton IGUCA, the Equus Beds Special Water Quality Use Area, the Lower Arkansas River restricted stream reach and the Lyons Special Water Quality Use Area across townships 18S to 27S, ranges 08W to 02E (map). Step one of any site screening over this aquifer is finding your parcel on that map.

Layer 2, safe-yield gating outside the closed areas. K.A.R. 5-22-7(b) explicitly contemplates small new non-domestic appropriations “in areas not closed by regulation or intensive groundwater use control area order,” at 15 acre-feet per year or less per point of diversion, 45 acre-feet per year or less cumulative within a two-mile radius, and 50 gallons per minute or less. That carve-out only makes sense if the rest of the district is open. A large industrial appropriation has to clear the safe-yield calculation, well spacing under K.A.R. 5-22-2, and the fresh-groundwater and chloride test under K.A.R. 5-22-15.

Layer 3, the processing suspensions. In November and December 2015 GMD2’s board approved a Kansas Geological Survey proposal to determine whether safe-yield calculations and recharge rates should be revised. On May 16, 2016 GMD2 manager Tim Boese asked the Chief Engineer to suspend processing of new groundwater applications in defined areas “due to declining trends in groundwater levels.” The first suspension order issued August 10, 2016, running to October 10, 2017. A second order on October 6, 2017 extended it to March 1, 2018 and expanded it to newly annexed McPherson County sections. February 2018 extended it again to March 1, 2019. A March 1, 2019 Findings and Order by Chief Engineer David W. Barfield extended it to December 31, 2019 (order PDF).

The Chief Engineer’s conclusion of law is quotable and directly on point: “That a temporary suspension of or a moratorium on processing new water right applications within the requested areas is proper because such water cannot be appropriated as required by the Kansas Water Appropriation Act… without first setting accurate safe yield limits in the described areas.” Applications for domestic use, temporary permits and multi-year flex account term permits were carved out, and a waiver was available for good cause.

Two honest limits on that finding. The suspension covered townships 18S through 23S, ranges 1W through 4W, in Harvey, McPherson and Reno counties. Those are north of the Colwich, Andale and Garden Plain parcels under option, which sit in Sedgwick County townships in the 25S to 27S range, so the suspension did not cover the Monarch or NextEra ground. Its significance is precedential rather than geographic. And the current status is unresolved. The order’s own terms say it runs “until December 31, 2019, unless extended,” KDA-DWR’s GMD2 news list shows no further extension posted, and no evidence surfaced that K.A.R. 5-22-7 was amended after the Kansas Geological Survey study. One call to KDA-DWR at 785-564-6700 resolves it, and that call should happen before anyone builds a water strategy on the assumption that the district is processing normally.

Put together: Kansas has not closed the Equus Beds to new water rights. Two subareas are closed by standing order. Everywhere else a new appropriation has to fit inside a calculated ceiling. And the state has already stopped processing new applications across a large block of this district three times while it questioned whether that ceiling was accurate.

How does Kansas calculate safe yield for a new groundwater right?

Under K.A.R. 5-22-7 the allowable amount is S = A x K, the area of consideration multiplied by an aquifer recharge value in feet per year. K is 0.5 ft/yr district-wide by default, 0.25 ft/yr in McPherson County and in well-spacing areas south of the North Fork Ninnescah River, and 0.1667 ft/yr in well-spacing areas north of it (GMD2 rules).

The subtraction is where applications fail. The sum of the proposed application plus vested rights, appropriation rights, term permits, earlier-priority applications and baseflow nodes may not exceed S for the area of consideration. Reported district use averaged 187,432 acre-feet per year across 2011 to 2015, of which 128,814 acre-feet, or 69 percent, was irrigation, drawn from 3,260 groundwater points of diversion across 143,178 irrigated acres. A new industrial appropriation is competing against a large, senior and entrenched irrigation base.

Run that calculation before you commit to a cooling design, not after. If the remainder does not support the design draw, the cooling technology decision has already been made for you by the arithmetic.

Can a data center buy farmland water rights and use them for cooling?

Not one for one, and this is the least understood fact on the list. K.A.R. 5-5-9 bars a change from irrigation to another use if it would increase net consumptive use from the same local source. The post-change maximum annual quantity is the right’s authorized quantity multiplied by a county-specific consumptive use percentage from KDA’s table dated August 3, 2017, with credit for return flows (K.A.R. 5-5-9).

In plain terms: buying 1,000 acre-feet of irrigation right does not give you 1,000 acre-feet of cooling water. It gives you the county consumptive-use percentage of it. Every acquisition model that skips this step overstates available supply, and the overstatement is discovered at the worst possible moment, after the land is under contract.

The rest of the change mechanism is straightforward. K.S.A. 82a-708b lets an owner change the place of use, point of diversion, or use made of the water without losing priority, provided the owner applies in writing, shows the change is reasonable and will not impair existing rights, shows it relates to the same local source of supply, and obtains approval (K.S.A. 82a-708b). It is processed under the same procedures as an original application, and a disapproval leaves the existing right unaffected. Fees through 6/30/2028: point of diversion 300 feet or less, $100; more than 300 feet, $200; change place of use, $200; change use made of water, $300. Fees halve on 7/1/2028. Decision within 150 days, with a fee refund if not decided within 180.

When does the Kansas Water Transfer Act apply?

At 2,000 acre-feet or more per year moved to a point of use more than 35 miles by air radius from the point of diversion. That triggers K.S.A. 82a-1501 through 82a-1508: application, hearing officer, initial order, then a final order issued by a hearing panel made up of the DWR Chief Engineer, the KDHE Secretary and the Director of the Kansas Water Office.

A three-agency panel is a materially longer and more political path than a standard appropriation. If a siting plan involves drawing from one basin and cooling in another, check this trigger before the site is selected rather than after.

How long does a Kansas water right application actually take?

K.S.A. 82a-708a requires a decision within 150 days of a complete application. Two provisions stretch that. K.A.R. 5-3-1b provides that an application is not complete until the groundwater management district issues its final recommendation, and K.A.R. 5-3-4c lets the Chief Engineer hold an application up to 365 days if there is a reasonable chance it may be approved later.

Those two rules together are how a groundwater management district slows a large application without denying it, and they are why the statutory clock is not the schedule to budget against. Where the Chief Engineer holds a hearing, either in the public interest, at the request of a senior right holder alleging impairment, or to take public input, written notice to parties and requesters goes out not later than 15 days before it. The realistic planning assumption over the Equus Beds is a contested proceeding measured in years. Wichita’s own ASR modification ran from 2018 to 2021 and did not succeed.

Once construction is complete and water has been applied to the approved beneficial use within the allowed time, the applicant notifies the Chief Engineer, who inspects, and a certificate of appropriation issues in duplicate if the right was perfected in conformity with the application (K.S.A. 82a-714).

What are the penalties for pumping water without a permit in Kansas?

Two parallel tracks, criminal and civil, and both accrue per day. Under K.S.A. 82a-728(b), unauthorized appropriation of water, or a threat to appropriate without a permit, is a class C misdemeanor, and each day the violation continues after the Chief Engineer gives notice by restricted mail is a separate offense. Under K.A.R. 5-14-10, unauthorized diversion carries $500 per day for up to 20 days plus a one-year suspension of water use.

The full civil schedule is worth reading as a risk register rather than a fine schedule (K.A.R. 5-14-10):

Violation	Penalty	Max days	Suspension of water use
Waste of water, flowmeter noncompliance, failure to implement a required conservation plan	$500/day	20	1 year
Failure to provide information	$500/day	20	1 year
Unauthorized diversion or threat to divert, including unauthorized point of diversion, place of use or type of use	$500/day	20	1 year
Denial of access to the Chief Engineer’s agents	$1,000/day	10	3 years
Lack of required flowmeter	$1,000/day	10	3 years
Noncompliance with a substantial order, including IGUCA orders, cease-and-desist orders and minimum desirable streamflow orders	$1,000/day	10	5 years
Meter manipulation or tampering	$1,000/day	10	5 years
Falsification of water use data	$1,000 per instance	n/a	5 years
Noncompliance with a special change-application condition	$1,000/day	10	2 years

The dollar amounts are modest. The suspensions are not. A one-year or five-year suspension of water use at an operating data center is a business continuity event with a nine-figure shadow, and no fine schedule captures that. Two consequences follow. First, penalties and suspensions attach to the water right and transfer to any subsequent heir, assignee or purchaser, which makes them an acquisition diligence item rather than an operator-only risk. Buying the land can mean buying an active suspension. Second, reporting is its own exposure: under K.S.A. 82a-732 every owner except domestic use files a water use report for the prior calendar year by March 1, with a civil penalty of up to $1,000 per water right for late filing, possible indefinite suspension or an imposed telemetry requirement, and a class C misdemeanor for knowingly submitting false material information.

What discharge permit does cooling tower blowdown need in Kansas?

A KDHE NPDES permit if the discharge reaches waters of the United States, or a Kansas Water Pollution Control state permit if it does not, applied for through KEIMS. KDHE has held delegated NPDES authority since 1974. Limits for total dissolved solids, chloride and thermal load are set case by case in the individual permit. There is no fixed statewide numeric standard (KDHE).

The absence of a bright line is itself the finding, and it is a scheduling problem rather than a technical one. KDHE states that limits “cannot be determined without knowledge of production operations, production rates, wastewater volumes, treatment technology.” That negotiation takes time and it needs design data a project often does not have when it needs the permit. Start it early. Penalties under K.S.A. 65-170d run up to $10,000 per violation, with each day of a continuing violation a separate violation (K.S.A. 65-170d).

Stormwater is separate and does not cover any of this. The Kansas industrial stormwater general permit runs November 1, 2021 through October 31, 2026, so the renewal cycle is live right now. It requires a site-specific SWPPP and best management practices and covers plant yards, material handling, storage and manufacturing buildings. It does not cover process wastewater or cooling tower blowdown (KDHE).

Does a data center campus become a public water supply system?

It can, and the trigger is low enough that campuses cross it without noticing. A public water supply system delivers piped water for human consumption to at least 10 service connections, or regularly serves at least 25 individuals daily for at least 60 days a year (K.A.R. 28-15-16 and K.S.A. 65-163).

A new system meeting that threshold needs a KDHE Bureau of Water permit demonstrating technical, financial and managerial capacity before construction begins (KDHE). This is separate from and additional to the DWR appropriation permit, and it applies to a closed-loop or air-cooled campus too, because the potable and domestic supply question survives the cooling design decision.

Does the Kansas data center tax exemption require a minimum investment?

Yes, $250 million. Kansas SB 98, effective July 1, 2025, grants a 20-year sales and use tax exemption to a qualified data center investing at least $250,000,000 in eligible costs by the fifth year of operations and creating and maintaining at least 20 new jobs within two calendar years of commencing operations (SB 98).

One trade almost nobody reports, per legal-industry analyses of SB 98: a qualified data center taking the SB 98 exemption is barred from the separate K.S.A. 66-1239 discounted economic development electric rate. It is an exchange rather than a giveaway, and for a load with a 20-year power bill the electricity side of that trade can be the larger number.

How do Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Nebraska differ on data center water rules?

Four different regimes across four adjacent states. Kansas runs prior appropriation with a permit required for any non-domestic use at any volume. Oklahoma runs a hybrid. Missouri is riparian and requires no withdrawal permit at all. Nebraska pushes groundwater permitting down to Natural Resources Districts and adds a disclosure mandate the other three do not have.

State	Water quantity regime	Permit trigger	Administering body
Kansas	Prior appropriation, groundwater and surface water	Any non-domestic use, at any volume	KDA-DWR Chief Engineer, with GMD safe-yield gating
Oklahoma	Hybrid: appropriation for stream water, correlative allocation for groundwater	Groundwater at 2 acre-feet per acre owned absent a completed basin maximum annual yield study	Oklahoma Water Resources Board
Missouri	Riparian	No withdrawal permit. Major Water User registration at 100,000 gallons per day	Missouri DNR
Nebraska	District-by-district groundwater permitting	Set by the local Natural Resources District	Natural Resources Districts

Two details change siting math. Oklahoma’s SB 259 prohibits data centers from using groundwater in open-air evaporative cooling from November 1, 2026, which turns a technology preference into a permit condition. And Nebraska requires data center owners to file an annual report to the state and the legislature’s Natural Resources Committee disclosing size, location, and annual electricity and water demand. That disclosure mandate is the only one of its kind among the four states, and it is worth flagging to any client evaluating multi-state siting, because it changes what a competitor can learn about your operation.

Missouri is the lowest-friction of the four on water quantity, which shifts the entire environmental review burden onto discharge, air and local zoning rather than removing it.

Cooling technology is the fork that decides the whole permitting picture

Evaporative and water-cooled designs deliver better power usage effectiveness, and evaporative cooling can cut peak cooling power demand substantially against dry cooling. They also pull the facility fully into DWR appropriation-permit territory and, for blowdown, into KDHE individual NPDES or KWPC discharge-permit territory. They concentrate the water draw on the hottest days, which is exactly when Kansas sources are most stressed and when a safe-yield or priority-call problem is most likely to bind.

Closed-loop and air-cooled designs approach zero on-site water consumption for cooling and shrink both exposures. They do not remove the public water supply question for potable and domestic use on site, and they shift the water footprint upstream to power generation rather than eliminating it.

The permitting consequence is what makes this an early decision rather than a design-development one. Over the Equus Beds, the safe-yield arithmetic can foreclose the evaporative option before anyone has drawn a plan, and finding that out after the land is under contract is the expensive version of the same discovery.

Does a data center need a decommissioning bond?

Increasingly yes, and it is the requirement most likely to be missed until it revokes a permit. Lincoln County, Nebraska’s draft requires a bond at 125 percent of an engineer’s estimated decommissioning cost before approval, re estimated every five years at owner expense, with annual proof of financial responsibility and 60 days to top up after a revision. The Chester and Montgomery model requires no bond, surety or escrow at all.

The Lincoln County scope of what must be removed is broad: servers, cabling, cooling equipment, generators, fuel systems, batteries and substations, plus site restoration. Abandonment is defined as 12 consecutive months of ceased operation, followed by six months to complete restoration. If the guarantee is not posted within 30 days of approval, the permit is revoked. If restoration is not completed, the county may draw on the guarantee and complete the work at the owner’s expense.

The Chester and Montgomery model handles the same risk with deadlines rather than money: decommissioning begins within one year of cessation, with one possible one year extension, and completes within 18 months. For a county deciding what to ask for, that is the live design question. Deadlines without financial assurance are only as good as the owner’s balance sheet at the moment of abandonment.

Can a county reject a data center after the moratorium expires?

A moratorium is a pause, not a ban, and most expire into a new ordinance rather than a prohibition. Mercer County commissioners voted unanimously to lift their moratorium on 2026-07-15 once the replacement ordinances were adopted and published. The realistic outcome is not denial. It is approval with conditions: Iron County, Utah approved a conditional use permit on 2026-06-04 with 62 of them.

That Iron County approval is the most useful precedent in this whole file, because it works backward from a yes. The 62 conditions span water rights, wastewater disposal, road improvements and wildlife protection (St. George News). A developer reading that list learns exactly what a passing study package looks like. A county reading it learns what enforceable conditions look like when someone else has already drafted them.

Two limits on that pattern, and the first one corrects an earlier version of this post. Leavenworth County, Kansas is the counter-case: commissioners voted 3 to 2 against extending a 90 day moratorium in early August 2026, let it lapse, and adopted no replacement restriction, which cleared the way for Project Bluestem on more than 1,100 acres near Tonganoxie. A moratorium can end in nothing at all. The second limit runs the other direction. No Kansas case was found where a moratorium expired and was replaced by newly adopted permissive zoning, and Mercer County, from outside the three states, remains the cleanest example of a pause ending in an adopted ordinance. Treat “every moratorium produces an ordinance” as a reasonable expectation rather than a verified regional outcome.

The rest of the package: traffic, stormwater, lighting, thermal, emergency response

The elements below rarely get their own headline and are where scope disputes actually happen.

• Traffic. The Chester and Montgomery model requires no traffic impact study at all. Lincoln County handles it through a Road Use Agreement obligating the developer to repair or pay for county road repair after construction, as determined by the County Highway Superintendent. Where a study is required, note that data centers have very low operational trip generation and very high construction trip generation, a pattern standard ITE land use codes handle poorly. Access must be from an arterial or collector with secondary emergency access.
• Stormwater. No standalone ordinance language in the surveyed model. Runoff is controlled indirectly through a 40 percent maximum building coverage and 50 percent maximum impervious coverage. The federal and state layer still applies: NPDES Construction General Permit for one acre or more of disturbance, a SWPPP, and post construction MS4 requirements where applicable.
• Viewshed. No formal viewshed analysis. Submittal is elevations and renderings of all principal facades visible off site. Lincoln County adds massing rules, earth tone colors, non reflective surfaces, and screening berms averaging at least five feet with maximum 3:1 side slopes.
• Lighting. Lincoln County requires a photometric study, with parking and traffic way lighting automatically extinguished from 11:00 pm to 7:00 am. The Chester and Montgomery model has no photometric requirement.
• Thermal. A Thermal Impact Mitigation Plan prepared and certified by a professional engineer, covering waste heat, plume and heat discharge, localized heat island effects under representative seasonal conditions, and waste heat reuse feasibility. No named model exists. This one is rarely scoped by anyone.
• Emergency response. An Emergency Response Plan by a qualified professional, reviewed and accepted by the local fire department, with an NFPA 855 demonstration for stationary energy storage, first responder training at applicant expense, 24 hour contact signage, and in building radio coverage verified with the county 911 center.
• Community benefits. Lincoln County requires a legally binding negotiated agreement as an application item, with no standardized formula or dollar amount attached to it.

What the opposition is actually about, measured correctly

Public opposition to local data centers is high and rose sharply through 2026, but the instruments are not interchangeable and should never be blended into a single number. Name each one:

Instrument	Field dates	Question wording	Result
Gallup (Recon MR)	2026-03-02 to 2026-03-18	construction of “data centers for artificial intelligence” in your local area	71 percent oppose, 48 percent strongly; 27 percent favor (n=1,000, +/-4)
Heatmap Pro / Embold	2026-05-15 to 2026-05-28	“a data center” project near your home	71 percent oppose, 21 percent support (n=4,118 registered voters, +/-1.6)
CBS News / YouGov	2026-06-02 to 2026-06-04	“a new data center in your area”	oppose outnumber favor by more than 2 to 1 (n=2,023, +/-2.8)
Annenberg Public Policy Center (Penn)	2026-06-16 to 2026-07-19	“new data centers in your area”	61 percent oppose, 14 percent support, up 12 points since February and March (n=1,320)

The Gallup wording asks about data centers for artificial intelligence; Heatmap, CBS and Annenberg ask generically. The AI framing plausibly raises measured opposition relative to a generic question, which is why the two 71 percent figures should not be read as replications of each other.

The more useful finding for scoping work is Gallup’s open ended data on why people object, because it maps almost one to one onto the study package: effect on resources 50 percent (water 18, energy 18), quality of life 22 percent, costs 20 percent (utility bills 15), pollution 16 percent (noise 9, air and water contamination 2). Regionally, Gallup measured opposition at 76 percent in the Midwest and 75 percent in the South, versus 63 percent in the West. Rural siting in Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska should be treated as at least as contested as metro siting, not less.

The state is recruiting while the counties are pausing

This is the part that gets flattened in most coverage, and it cuts against a simple opposition narrative in both directions.

States are subsidizing what their counties are pausing. Kansas SB 98 grants a 20 year, 100 percent sales and use tax exemption to data centers investing $250 million and creating 20 jobs within two years, conditioned on a 10 year electricity purchase agreement and a “comprehensive water plan that reflects responsible stewardship” (Kansas Department of Commerce). Missouri has exempted state and local sales and use tax on data center equipment, utilities and construction materials since 2017 (RSMo 144.810). Kansas is subsidizing the same asset class Harvey County, Saline County, Topeka and El Dorado are pausing.

Nebraska is the reverse case. Governor Jim Pillen signed an executive order on 2026-07-20 suspending state incentives and prohibiting approval of new large scale data center applications under the ImagiNE Nebraska Act, and creating a task force (Office of Governor Pillen). There, the state moved with its counties rather than against them.

Kansas jurisdictions have also said yes, repeatedly, and that belongs in the same picture. The Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas Planning Commission voted 4 to 2 on 2025-05-29 to recommend rezoning, preliminary platting and master plan amendments for a $12.6 billion, 550 acre, six building, 1.8 million square foot hyperscale campus, and the Unified Government gave zoning approval in May 2026. De Soto approved a $3.1 billion, 290 acre development agreement in August 2025 adjacent to Panasonic. Reno County rejected a ban 4 to 1 on 2026-06-17 and is continuing to draft regulations instead. Edgerton rejected a moratorium 3 to 2 on 2026-06-11. Gardner considered one in June 2026 and did not adopt it. Johnson County has no county moratorium. Across the state line, Meta’s $1 billion Kansas City, Missouri campus went operational in August 2025, LEED Gold, with a 100 percent clean and renewable power match and more than 1 million gallons of potable water saved through stormwater reuse during construction (Meta), and Google confirmed a second Kansas City area campus, Project Mica, in February 2026.

Utility accommodation exists in all four states. The Kansas Corporation Commission approved an Evergy Large Load Power Service tariff on 2025-11-06 for customers with peak demand above 75 MW, with a minimum 12 year service commitment, an optional 5 year ramp, minimum bill provisions requiring payment on at least 80 percent of contracted demand, collateral equal to about two years of minimum bill obligations, and customer responsibility for interconnection and transmission upgrade costs (KCC). The Missouri PSC approved Ameren Missouri’s Large Load rate plan on 2025-11-24 at 75 MW and above. Oklahoma has the Data Center Customer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026 at the same threshold. Nebraska sets interconnection standards above 20 MW, the lowest of the four.

The litigation runs in both directions, and one earlier reading of it was wrong. In Independence, Missouri, a referendum against incentives for a data center was filed 2026-03-03, blocked by the city, and a court ruled on 2026-03-25 that the ordinance was not subject to referendum. In Joplin, a referendum against an annexation and rezoning fell short on signatures on 2026-03-18. Those are procedural losses for the opposition. El Dorado, Kansas is not. The city sued on 2026-07-14 over a petition carrying more than 700 signatures, and a Butler County district judge ruled the petition is a legislative act, meaning the city must either adopt the ban as written or put it to a public vote. A follow-on ruling on 2026-08-25 reaffirmed it. That is a ruling against the city. Three Kansas cities are now in court against their own residents over ballot petitions: El Dorado, Emporia, which filed a comparable suit on 2026-08-09, and Edgerton, which filed City of Edgerton v. Carrie Schmidt, Public Trust Collective Inc., Kimberly Twente, et al. in Johnson County District Court on 2026-08-04 seeking to void a 208 signature petition that the Johnson County Election Office had already certified as valid, and that would ban high impact data centers, targeting an $860 million DAMAC Digital Solutions Kansas LLC project at Logistics Park Kansas City. Residents sue over approvals too: Neal Palmer and Haskell Farms LLC v. Unified Government, filed November 2025 in Wyandotte County, alleges procedural errors in an approval and has delayed that project.

No data center developer was found suing a Kansas, Oklahoma or Missouri jurisdiction over a moratorium or a denial. That absence is worth stating plainly, because national analogues get cited locally as if they were regional precedent. Eco TIP West v. Chatham County, North Carolina and RCM Hill LLC v. Hill County, Texas, a $100 million takings claim that ended with a moratorium being rescinded, are both real and both outside these markets. Neither should be presented to a Kansas commission as what happens next.

Nebraska’s power structure cuts both ways. Nebraska is the only state served 100 percent by publicly owned utilities, with average rates around 13.59 cents per kilowatt hour, roughly 26 percent below the national average (American Public Power Association). Cheap, reliable, cost of service power is a siting attraction. But because every ratepayer is an owner, cost allocation for a large load is a public governance question rather than a rate case before a commission. The same structural fact drives both the attraction and the organized resistance.

And the water problem is engineerable. Do not write or read this topic as if water use is a fixed property of data centers. It is a design choice, and the study is what proves which choice was made.

The application package, as a checklist

For a developer scoping the work, or a county deciding what to ask for:

1. Pre submittal meeting with county planning.
2. Threshold determination: floor area, acreage, megawatts, ancillary exemption.
3. Water feasibility study: seasonal demand, source, one mile geologic map, 1,000 foot well and surface water inventory, long term safe yield, no adverse impact finding, recycling or release pathway, signed by a qualified professional.
4. Utility capacity certifications, water and electric, in writing from the provider.
5. Wastewater disposal analysis including HVAC discharge quantity, plus a wastewater feasibility study if disposal is private.
6. Drought response plan.
7. Pre construction noise and vibration study: baseline at multiple times of day, ANSI S1.4 Type 1 instrumentation, ANSI/ASA S12.9 Part 4 assessment framework, octave band analysis, full spectrum modeling covering substations, on site generation and accessory uses.
8. Energy usage plan, PE certified: annual demand, supply sources, storage, backup, interconnection documentation.
9. Thermal impact mitigation plan, PE certified.
10. Environmental and community impact analysis: floodplains, wetlands, waters, cultural and historic resources on site and within 500 feet.
11. Emergency response plan accepted by the fire department, with an NFPA 855 demonstration for battery storage.
12. Photometric study where required.
13. Road use agreement and infrastructure cost allocation.
14. Decommissioning plan with an engineer’s cost estimate supporting a bond at 125 percent where required.
15. Electronic waste plan.
16. Community benefits agreement where required.

For a Kansas site, run five more steps in parallel with the county package, because none of them are satisfied by it:

17. Locate the parcel on KDA-DWR’s Closed and Restricted Areas map and determine whether it sits inside an intensive groundwater use control area, a Special Water Quality Use Area or a restricted stream reach. Inside an IGUCA, new non-domestic appropriations are closed by standing order and the analysis stops there.
18. Confirm with KDA-DWR at 785-564-6700 whether the 2016 to 2019 suspension of new appropriation processing in GMD2 was extended past December 31, 2019, and whether K.A.R. 5-22-7 was amended after the Kansas Geological Survey safe-yield study.
19. Compute S = A x K for the area of consideration using the correct K value, then subtract vested rights, appropriation rights, term permits, earlier-priority applications and baseflow nodes, before the cooling design is frozen.
20. If the plan is to acquire farmland water rights, apply the K.A.R. 5-5-9 county consumptive-use percentage to the authorized quantity first, and confirm the change stays within the same local source of supply.
21. Check the Water Transfer Act trigger at 2,000 acre-feet per year moved more than 35 miles, and run water-right diligence on the land itself, because penalties and suspensions under K.A.R. 5-14-10 transfer with the right to a purchaser.

Then the continuing obligations: post construction noise study one to 12 months after the first Certificate of Occupancy, annual water and wastewater sampling, annual water and electric consumption reports, annual generator testing reports, annual fire safety inspection, annual proof of financial responsibility on the bond, copies of every report filed with any other agency, and a decommissioning cost re estimate every five years.

And the state permits that run in parallel and are not satisfied by the county process: a Kansas DWR appropriation permit under K.S.A. 82a-701 et seq. with the GMD2 completeness gate at K.A.R. 5-3-1b, a KDHE Bureau of Water public water supply permit if the campus crosses the 10 connection or 25 person threshold, KDHE air construction and Class II operating permits, KDHE NPDES or KWPC discharge authorization through KEIMS for blowdown, and industrial stormwater coverage under a general permit whose term ends 2026-10-31; Oklahoma OWRB groundwater under SB 259 from 2026-11-01, ODEQ air, and the HB 2992 60 day notification; Nebraska NDEE air and discharge plus Natural Resources District groundwater rules; and federally, the NPDES Construction General Permit and SWPPP, a Corps Section 404 permit only if jurisdictional waters are affected, and FAA 7460-1 near airports.

Where iSi fits

The honest position is narrow and technical. iSi does the environmental scoping and the baseline field work that these ordinances actually call for: the pre construction ambient noise and vibration survey, water and wastewater characterization, the environmental and community impact inventory, air permitting support for the generator fleet, and the compliance program that carries the annual reporting obligations after the permit is issued. On the Kansas water side that extends to water right due diligence on land under option, the safe-yield and consumptive-use arithmetic behind an appropriation or change application, and the hydrogeologic work a contested proceeding over the Equus Beds will demand. That work is the same whether the client is the developer assembling the application or the county evaluating one, though on any given project we work for one side, not both.

iSi is headquartered in Wichita, inside the county whose interim development control expires in September, over the aquifer everyone is arguing about. If you are a developer facing an expiry with an application to assemble, or a county writing the ordinance that will replace your pause, the useful first step is a threshold and scope determination: which studies your specific ordinance actually requires, at what standard, on what schedule, and what the state water right underneath it will take. Our environmental compliance services team works across 40 states and can put that scope in writing before the calendar decides it for you. Call (316) 264-7050.

Sources

Primary: statute, ordinance and official records

• Harvey County, KS, Commission implements moratorium on data center developments: https://www.harveycounty.gov/commission-implements-moratorium-on-data-center-developments (verified 2026-08-19)
• City of Tulsa, Council Supporting Documentation, item 49527, data center moratorium ordinance: https://www.cityoftulsa.org/apps/CouncilDocuments?item=49527 (verified 2026-08-19; ordinance PDF itself not retrievable, title and terms confirmed via the council index and three independent outlets)
• City of El Dorado, KS, Official Statements: https://www.eldoks.gov/638/Official-Statements (verified 2026-08-19)
• K.S.A. 19-2963, Penalties for violations; actions for enforcement: https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch19/019_029_0063.html (verified 2026-08-19)
• K.S.A. 12-761: https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch12/012_007_0061.html (verified 2026-08-19)
• Kansas Department of Commerce, SB 98 Data Center Sales Tax Exemption: https://www.kansascommerce.gov/program/business-incentives-and-services/sb-98-data-center-sales-tax-exemption/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• Kansas Department of Agriculture, Division of Water Resources, Water Appropriation: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/division-of-water-resources/water-appropriation (verified 2026-08-19)
• KDHE Bureau of Air FAQ: https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/faq.aspx?TID=22 and K.A.R. 28-19-546: https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/DocumentCenter/View/27177/KAR-28-19-546-and-28-19-564 (verified 2026-08-19)
• Oklahoma House of Representatives, Lawmakers Mark Signing of Landmark Data Center Protections: https://www.okhouse.gov/posts/news-20260806_2 (verified 2026-08-19)
• Oklahoma SB 259, Groundwater Modernization Act: https://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=SB259&Session=2600 (verified 2026-08-19)
• Oklahoma HB 2992, Data Center Customer Ratepayer Protection Act: https://www.oklegislature.gov/BillInfo.aspx?Bill=HB2992&Session=2600 (verified 2026-08-19)
• Office of Governor Jim Pillen, Executive Order on Data Centers: https://governor.nebraska.gov/gov-pillen-signs-executive-order-data-centers (verified 2026-08-19)
• RSMo 144.810, Missouri data center sales tax exemption: https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=144.810 (verified 2026-08-19)

Model ordinances and drafts

• Chester County and Montgomery County (PA) Planning Commissions, Data Center Ordinance Guide, Version 1.0, April 2026: https://www.chescoplanning.org/UandI/DataCenters/pdf/DataCenterOrdinanceGuide.pdf (verified 2026-08-19; a recommended model guide, not adopted law)
• Franklin County, IN, Data Center Regulations Draft v2.0: https://www.franklincounty.in.gov/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/Data-Center-Regulations-Draft-v2.0.pdf (verified 2026-08-19; source of the ANSI/ASA S12.9 Part 4 citation)
• Larimer County, CO, Temporary Moratorium on Data Center Facilities: https://www.larimer.gov/planning/temp-moratorium-data-centers (verified 2026-08-19)

Standards referenced

• ANSI/ASA S12.9-2005/Part 4 (R2020), Quantities and Procedures for Description and Measurement of Environmental Sound, Part 4; current revision ASA/ANSI S12.9-2021/Part 4
• ANSI S1.4, Type 1 precision sound level meter
• NFPA 855, Installation of Stationary Energy Storage Systems
• EPA, Guidance on Calculating Potential to Emit for Emergency Generators

Jurisdiction reporting

• North Platte Post, Explained: what Lincoln County’s proposed data center regulations would actually do (Sec. 8.22 draft, 2026-07-16): https://northplattepost.com/posts/b35708e9-d9a8-4c30-8328-cb8331c1852a (verified 2026-08-19)
• KNOP, Lincoln County debates data center; commissioners vote down moratorium: https://www.knopnews2.com/2026/07/13/lincoln-county-debates-data-center-commissioners-vote-down-moratorium/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• Nebraska Public Media, Twelfth Nebraska county temporarily bans data centers: https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/twelfth-nebraska-county-temporarily-bans-data-centers/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• Nebraska Public Media, A Nebraska county just banned new data centers for up to a year: https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/a-nebraska-county-just-banned-new-data-centers-for-up-to-a-year-more-could-follow/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• 1011 Now, Otoe County commissioners pass moratorium: https://www.1011now.com/2026/05/20/otoe-county-commissioners-pass-moratorium-data-center-or-not/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• Flatwater Free Press, A Nebraska county just banned new data centers for up to a year: https://flatwaterfreepress.org/a-nebraska-county-just-banned-new-data-centers-for-up-to-a-year-more-could-follow/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• Rock 101.5, Data center conditional use permit to be discussed at Kearney Planning Commission meeting: https://rock1015.com/2026/08/18/data-center-conditional-use-permit-to-be-discussed-at-kearney-planning-commission-meeting/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• WIBW, City of Topeka pauses data center considerations for 12 months: https://www.wibw.com/2026/07/15/city-topeka-pauses-data-center-considerations-12-months/ and Topeka City Council updates data center moratorium: https://www.wibw.com/2026/08/12/topeka-city-council-updates-data-center-moratorium-hears-recommendation-tps-officers/?outputType=amp (verified 2026-08-19)
• Salina311, Saline County passes three-year moratorium: https://www.salina311.com/stories/2026-03-17-saline-county-considers-three-year-moratorium-on-data-centers-and-energy-facilities/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• KSN, Kansas county puts moratorium on data centers and nuclear, hydrogen plants: https://www.ksn.com/news/kansas-county-puts-moratorium-on-data-centers-and-nuclear-hydrogen-plants/ and El Dorado commission invalidates citizen-led petition: https://www.ksn.com/news/local/el-dorado-commission-invalidates-citizen-led-petition-on-data-centers-asks-court-to-weigh-in/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• KOSU, Tulsa will pause new data center construction for 9 months: https://www.kosu.org/tulsa-data-centers-paused (verified 2026-08-19)
• KTUL, Tulsa City Council OKs temporary halt on new data center construction through 2026: https://ktul.com/news/local/tulsa-city-council-oks-temporary-halt-on-new-data-center-construction-through-2026 (verified 2026-08-19)
• Central Nordak Publishing, Data center moratorium lifted in Mercer County: https://www.centralnordak.com/articles/data-center-moratorium-lifted-in-mercer-county/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• St. George News, Planning Commission approves conditional use permit for proposed Iron County data center: https://www.stgeorgeutah.com/news/planning-commission-approves-conditional-use-permit-for-proposed-iron-county-data-center/article_0a818ae9-8496-4e3e-87e0-53a09ee256c5.html (verified 2026-08-19)

Water use, noise, air and policy analysis

• Construction Physics, I Was Wrong About Data Center Water Consumption: https://www.construction-physics.com/p/i-was-wrong-about-data-center-water (verified 2026-08-19)
• Nona Technologies, Data Center Water Consumption: The Real Numbers (IEA and LBNL figures): https://www.nona-technologies.com/blog/data-center-water-consumption (verified 2026-08-19)
• Microsoft, Inside Microsoft’s two-decade push to cut water intensity: https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2026/06/24/inside-microsofts-two-decade-push-to-cut-water-intensity-while-scaling-for-growth/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• Data Center Dynamics, Microsoft’s upcoming data centers to use closed loop, zero-water evaporation design: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsofts-upcoming-data-centers-to-use-closed-loop-zero-water-evaporation-design/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• Lyver Acoustics, Data Center Noise Study for Prince William, Fauquier and King George Counties: https://protectpwc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/Lyver-Data-Center-Noise-Study-123122.pdf (verified 2026-08-19)
• Trinity Consultants, Navigating Due Diligence and Air Permitting for Data Center Development: https://trinityconsultants.com/resources/powering-the-next-generation-of-data-centers-navigating-due-diligence-and-air-permitting-for-data-center-development/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• American Bar Association, Shifts in NEPA Affecting Data Center Development: https://www.americanbar.org/groups/environment_energy_resources/resources/natural-resources-environment/2025-fall/shifts-nepa-affecting-data-center-development/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• E&E News, The ‘time-consuming’ permits dozens of data centers are skipping: https://www.eenews.net/articles/the-time-consuming-permits-dozens-of-data-centers-are-skipping/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• Investigate Midwest, A loophole leaves Oklahoma data center water consumption largely untracked: https://investigatemidwest.org/2026/07/14/oklahoma-data-centers-water-use-loophole/ (verified 2026-08-19)
• American Public Power Association, The 100-percent public power state: https://www.publicpower.org/blog/100-percent-public-power-state (verified 2026-08-19)
• Nebraska Examiner, Pillen rescinds ImagiNE Act tax incentives for new Nebraska data centers: https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/07/20/pillen-rescinds-imagine-act-tax-incentives-for-new-nebraska-data-centers/ (verified 2026-08-19)

Public opinion

• Gallup, Americans Oppose AI Data Centers in Their Area (Recon MR, 2026-03-02 to 2026-03-18, n=1,000, +/-4): https://news.gallup.com/poll/709772/americans-oppose-data-centers-area.aspx (verified 2026-08-19)
• The Hill, Almost half strongly oppose AI data centers in their area: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5877192-ai-data-centers-opposition/ (verified 2026-08-19)

Sedgwick County, the Equus Beds and Kansas water rights (added 2026-08-27)

• Wichita-Sedgwick County Metropolitan Area Planning Department, data center page: https://www.wichita.gov/datacenters (verified 2026-08-27 and re-checked 2026-09-09; note the page lagged the September 2 third-extension vote, still showing the superseded September 10 date)
• KWCH, Sedgwick County extends pause on data center applications through Dec. 24: https://www.kwch.com/2026/09/02/sedgwick-county-extends-pause-data-center-applications/ (verified 2026-09-09)
• Sedgwick County, news release scheduling data center town halls, 2026-02-25: https://www.sedgwickcounty.org/communications/news-releases/sedgwick-county-schedules-data-center-town-halls/ (verified 2026-08-27)
• Sedgwick County, Resolution 014-2026: https://www.sedgwickcounty.org/media/70944/0122-26-resolution-014-2026.pdf (verified 2026-08-27; image-only scan with no machine-readable text, resolution number taken from the county file title)
• K.S.A. 12-757, zoning amendment notice: https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch12/012_007_0057.html (verified 2026-08-27)
• KMUW, Sedgwick County’s data center ban continues as commissioners approve second extension, 2026-05-07: https://www.kmuw.org/2026-05-07/sedgwick-countys-data-center-ban-continues-as-commissioners-approve-second-extension (verified 2026-08-27)
• KMUW, Two data center companies are trying to buy more than 1,000 acres of Sedgwick County land, 2026-03-16: https://www.kmuw.org/local-news/2026-03-16/two-data-center-companies-are-trying-to-buy-more-than-1-000-acres-of-sedgwick-county-land (verified 2026-08-27)
• City of Wichita, Managing Supply: https://www.wichita.gov/506/Managing-Supply (verified 2026-08-27)
• City of Wichita, Drought Update: https://www.wichita.gov/501/Drought-Update (verified 2026-08-27)
• City of Wichita, City Council agenda 2026-03-03 (ASR Phase III recharge basins): https://www.wichita.gov/AgendaCenter/ViewFile/Agenda/_03032026-2988 (verified 2026-08-27)
• USGS, Equus Beds Aquifer Storage and Recovery: https://www.usgs.gov/centers/central-plains-water-science-center/science/equus-beds-aquifer-storage-and-recovery-asr (verified 2026-08-27)
• USGS news release, Wichita’s water use strategy helps preserve Equus Beds aquifer: https://www.usgs.gov/news/state-news-release/wichitas-water-use-strategy-helps-preserve-equus-beds-aquifer (verified 2026-08-27)
• USGS SIR 2014-5185: https://www.usgs.gov/node/79172 (verified 2026-08-27; storage figures describe the roughly 165 to 189 square mile study area, not the full aquifer)
• USGS SIM 3192: https://pubs.usgs.gov/sim/3192/pdf/sim3192.pdf (verified 2026-08-27)
• Kansas Geological Survey, Equus Beds geology: https://www.kgs.ku.edu/Publications/Bulletins/Vol2/09_equus.html (verified 2026-08-27)
• EPA WIFIA, Wichita Northwest Water Treatment Facility: https://www.epa.gov/wifia/wichita-northwest-water-treatment-facility (verified 2026-08-27)
• Kansas Water Office, Equus Beds Chloride Plume Project: https://www.kwo.ks.gov/projects/equus-beds-chloride-plume-project (verified 2026-08-27)
• KDA-DWR, Groundwater Management District No. 2: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/division-of-water-resources/managing-kansas-water-resources/groundwater-management-districts/g-m-d-no-2 (verified 2026-08-27)
• KDA-DWR, Water Law Basics: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/division-of-water-resources/water-appropriation/water-law-basics (verified 2026-08-27)
• KDA-DWR, McPherson IGUCA: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/division-of-water-resources/managing-kansas-water-resources/intensive-groundwater-use-control-areas/mcpherson-iguca (verified 2026-08-27)
• KDA-DWR, Burrton IGUCA: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/division-of-water-resources/managing-kansas-water-resources/intensive-groundwater-use-control-areas/burrton-iguca (verified 2026-08-27)
• KDA-DWR, Closed and Restricted Areas Near GMD No. 2 map, dated 2017-07-07: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/5726/638467913351330000 (verified 2026-08-27)
• KDA-DWR, Findings and Order continuing the temporary suspension of processing new appropriation applications in GMD2, 2019-03-01: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/5722/638467913338200000 (verified 2026-08-27; status after 2019-12-31 not established, KDA-DWR 785-564-6700)
• KDA-DWR, Wichita ASR docket: https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/divisions-programs/division-of-water-resources/managing-kansas-water-resources/aquifer-storage-and-recovery/wichita-asr (verified 2026-08-27)
• Wichita ASR contested hearing record: https://wichitaasr.org/ (verified 2026-08-27)
• GMD2, statute index: https://www.gmd2.org/statute and K.A.R. 5-22 rules: https://www.gmd2.org/_files/ugd/9cdbba_a21c1a9c926a40feb4026afd87719aac.pdf (verified 2026-08-27)
• K.S.A. 82a-706: https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch82a/082a_007_0006.html (verified 2026-08-27)
• K.S.A. 82a-708b: https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch82a/082a_007_0008b.html (verified 2026-08-27)
• K.S.A. 82a-728: https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch82a/082a_007_0028.html (verified 2026-08-27)
• Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes, Chapter 82a index (82a-701 et seq., 82a-708a, 82a-714, 82a-732, 82a-1501 to 82a-1508): https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/ksa_ch82a.html (verified 2026-08-27; the 82a-701 and 82a-1501 section bodies would not render on direct fetch, so both are cited rather than quoted)
• K.A.R. 5-14-10, civil penalties: https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/kansas/K-A-R-5-14-10 (verified 2026-08-27)
• K.A.R. 5-5-9, change applications and consumptive use: https://www.law.cornell.edu/regulations/kansas/K-A-R-5-5-9 (verified 2026-08-27)
• K.S.A. 65-170d, water pollution civil penalties: https://ksrevisor.gov/statutes/chapters/ch65/065_001_0070d.html (verified 2026-08-27; section body would not render on direct fetch, cross-checked against https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/1263/Applicable-Federal-State-Laws)
• KDHE, New Public Water Supply System: https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/419/New-Public-Water-Supply-System (verified 2026-08-27)
• KDHE, Pollution Control Wastewater Programs: https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/754/Pollution-Control-Wastewater-Programs (verified 2026-08-27)
• KDHE, Industrial Stormwater: https://www.kdhe.ks.gov/788/Industrial-Stormwater (verified 2026-08-27)
• Kansas SB 98 (2025): https://kslegislature.gov/b2025_26/bills/sb98/ (verified 2026-08-27)
• Kansas Corporation Commission, Evergy Large Load Power Service tariff approval, 2025-11-06: https://www.kcc.ks.gov/news-11-6-25 (verified 2026-08-27)
• Meta, Kansas City data center, August 2025: https://about.fb.com/news/2025/08/metas-kansas-city-data-center/ (verified 2026-08-27)
• Lawrence Journal-World, Lawrence City Commission imposes 24-month moratorium, 2026-07-14: https://www2.ljworld.com/news/city-government/2026/jul/14/lawrence-city-commission-starts-process-of-developing-data-center-rules-imposes-24-month-moratorium/ (verified 2026-08-27)
• Tulsa Flyer, Tulsa pause on data centers expires this year, 2026-08-24: https://tulsaflyer.org/2026/08/24/government/post/tulsa-pause-data-centers-expires-this-year/ and Tulsa will pause new data center construction for 9 months after council vote, 2026-03-25: https://tulsaflyer.org/2026/03/25/government/post/tulsa-will-pause-new-data-center-construction-for-9-months-after-council-vote/ (verified 2026-08-27)
• News On 6, Tulsa County commissioners approve incentives for Project Clydesdale: https://www.newson6.com/story/68daf692cea9f791f30166db/tulsa-county-commissioners-vote-to-approve-tax-incentives-for-project-clydesdale-data-center and Choose Owasso, Project Clydesdale groundbreaking: https://www.chooseowasso.com/blog/project-clydesdale-groundbreaking (verified 2026-08-27; both confirm the site is on Tulsa County land near Owasso, outside the city ordinance)

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If your project is anywhere over the Equus Beds, the water right is the long pole and the county calendar is the short one, and they do not run on the same clock. iSi handles the water right due diligence, the safe-yield and consumptive-use math, and the baseline environmental work behind a Kansas appropriation application or a county impact study package, for developers and for the jurisdictions reviewing them. Start with a scope determination from our environmental compliance team before a design freeze makes the decision for you. We Plug In. You Level Up.