Tech giants have planted huge server farms near Boardman, promising economic growth, but many residents say the construction chaos and industrial sprawl haven't translated into meaningful employment for longtime locals. Is the data center boom actually helping Boardman families?
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Add your commentMy aunt runs a small electrical contracting business out of Hermiston and she got genuine subcontract work during the build-out phases. Paid well. Crew stayed busy for 18 months. So it's not ZERO local benefit — but she'll also tell you straight up that once the ribbon cutting happens the outside tech workers rotate in and locals are basically invisible to these companies again. The boom is in the building, not the operating.
Born and raised in Boardman. My dad worked at the potato processing plant for 30 years and that operation employed like half the town at various points. These data centers? My neighbor applied three separate times for any kind of position — janitorial, security, anything — and heard back exactly once with a form rejection. The jobs exist on paper. Not for us.
The tax abatements these companies negotiated are borderline criminal. Oregon handed out sweetheart deals for YEARS under the Enterprise Zone program and Boardman schools saw pennies. You want to tell me Amazon and Google need a tax break? In what universe is that a community win.
I want to push back on everyone acting like Boardman was some thriving paradise before the data centers arrived. We were hemorrhaging young people for decades. At least now there's SOMETHING here generating revenue and keeping the lights on for basic services. The alternative isn't some idyllic small-town life — it's a hollowed-out ghost town like half the eastern Oregon communities that didn't attract any investment at all.
^^ That's not quite right. The water usage is significant and worth debating, but agricultural water rights in the Umatilla Basin dwarf what the data centers pull. The data center water concerns are real — cooling systems are genuinely intensive — but let's not exaggerate. The bigger issue is WHERE that water comes from and what aquifer pressure it creates going forward. That's the actual fight locals should be having.
Genuine question for people who support this expansion: can you name five Boardman families — not Hermiston, not Pendleton, BOARDMAN — whose financial situation meaningfully improved long-term because of the data centers? Not construction temp jobs. Permanent improvement. I'll wait.
lol "community win" — I sat behind a convoy of like 40 semi trucks on 730 for 45 minutes last Tuesday morning. my kids were late to school. again. nobody from Google came to apologize for that.
Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but I heard these data centers actually consume more water than all the local farms combined. Pretty sure that's a documented fact at this point.
ok so i actually DO work at one of the facilities (not saying which) and yes the permanent headcount is small but the construction phases brought in real money. local motels were full for two years straight. the diner on main stayed open through winter because of it. people act like indirect economic activity doesnt count
I relocated here from Portland two years ago specifically BECAUSE of the economic activity. Property values are up, there's actually some investment happening in town. Maybe longtime residents are a little too focused on what they lost instead of what's being built.
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