Regional Industry & News

Drought and Heat: Rapid City, proposed Sequitor Edge data center poised to address drought challenges

Amidst drought, Sequitor Edge VP of Community Relations speaks to her own drought experience, reassures the public about the closed-loop system for as cooling source

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - More than half of South Dakota is in drought. Western South Dakota has some of the lowest soil moisture levels in the state. And as new development moves in — including a planned data center in Rapid City — water managers are asking a critical question: is there enough to go around? Laura Edwards, South Dakota State Climatologist and Extension Field Specialist at South Dakota State University, spoke with us about that.

“Those warmer temperatures have accelerated evaporation and made the drought definitely worse as a result,” Edwards said.

The answer — at least when it comes to the Sequitor Edge data center planned for the Black Hills Industrial Center — may be more reassuring than expected. The facility uses a closed-loop cooling system. To fill it for phase one: 65,000 gallons of water. After that, about 110,000 gallons a year for ongoing operations.

For context, that’s less than what two Rapid City households use in a year. A traditional data center without a closed-loop system? It could use hundreds of thousands of gallons a day.

Victoria Blatchford/Vice President of Community Relations and Business Development for Sequitor Edge, said she grew up as a farm girl in southwestern South Dakota’s ranchland, knowing all too well what the drought is like there.

“Walking across the grass and it’s brittle breaking underneath your feet... It’s a sad state of affairs,” Blatchford said.

Rapid City’s water superintendent says the city is in good shape — for now. Last year alone, the city produced three-point-six billion gallons of water. Deerfield Reservoir is nearly full. Pactola is at eighty-one percent capacity. Eric Boyda, Rapid City Water manager, says the city’s master plan projects that its existing water portfolio can handle typical growth through 2115.

We always invest in the future. We look at building a redundant, resilient system. So all of our planning in the past helps us deal with droughts like we’re going through today,” Boyda said.

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