Selectable Redactions Reveal Google-Linked Nebraska Data Centers’ Water Use, Peak Power and Tax Breaks

Local reporting by KOLN uncovered a technical redaction failure in filings to the Nebraska Department of Water, Energy, and Environment (DWEE) that allowed blacked-out text to remain selectable in the published PDFs. The recovered material exposed water-consumption figures, peak electricity demand and projected tax benefits for Google-affiliated data centers in Lincoln, Omaha and Papillion.

What the Recovered Filings Showed

Lincoln (Agate LLC): The filing lists a peak electrical demand of 52.65 megawatts (an instantaneous maximum draw) and annual water use of 13.299 megagallons (13.299 million gallons), attributed to cooling towers, evaporative systems and routine site operations. KOLN noted that this water volume is roughly equivalent to about 20 Olympic-size swimming pools and is less than half of one reported single-day city water use on Sept. 29 — comparisons that are illustrative because they use different accounting periods.

Papillion (Fireball Group LLC): The filings show an expected 547.88 megagallons of water use for 2025, which KOLN’s reconstruction indicates represents about 72% of the combined total reported by six facilities as of Sept. 30.

Statewide Submissions: By Sept. 30, six Nebraska data centers had filed reports; their combined annual water consumption totaled approximately 765 million gallons. That aggregate reflects only facilities that had filed by that date and may not represent every Nebraska data center.

Taxes and Incentives Revealed

The recovered documents also listed projected 2025 sales-and-use-tax exemptions under the Nebraska Advantage Act: Agate LLC (Lincoln) $55,822,472; Fireball Group LLC (Papillion) $39,171,573.39; and Westwood Solutions LLC (Omaha) $22,558,881. The filings stated that no rebates under that program had been received to date and that no incentive payments under the ImagiNE Nebraska Act had been received or were expected.

The filings indicate that the companies cited Nebraska law (Neb. Rev. Stat. §§ 81-1527 and 84-712.05 and NAC Title 115, Ch. 2) to assert electricity and water figures were trade secrets, but public records do not confirm whether each claim was formally adjudicated by DWEE.

How the Redaction Failed and What It Means

The apparent failure was technical: although the text was visually blacked out in the PDFs, the underlying content remained selectable and therefore recoverable. It remains unclear whether DWEE formally reviewed and approved each confidentiality claim or whether the agency has since corrected the published documents. KOLN filed a public-records request with DWEE on Sept. 30 seeking the redacted information; the station’s report did not include a formal response from Google addressing the figures, the trade-secret claims or the redaction failure.

Policy Response

In July 2026, Governor Jim Pillen signed an executive order creating a Data Center Task Force within DWEE to examine water resources, electricity systems and local infrastructure impacts and to coordinate state agency reviews of data-center proposals. The episode is likely to prompt DWEE to tighten redaction procedures and clarify which data legitimately qualify as protectable trade secrets, though any changes to standards remain an open policy question.

Nebraska residents can view submitted reports through DWEE’s Public Assistance Viewer by entering "DCR" in the "DEQ Program" field.