Apple's Plan to Restore Land and Expand Data Center in Waukee, Iowa
TapTechNews August 11th news, Apple is applying to the city of Waukee in western Des Moines, Iowa, to restore some of the land around its iCLoud data center to a freshwater marsh, known as a 'prairie pothole'.
The company initially purchased more than 2,000 acres of land in this area in 2017 and planned to build a data center by 2020. It wasn't until 2022 that the company started construction on the first of the two planned data centers.
Apple has reserved about 592 acres of land for future data centers and storage facilities, as well as water resource management. Meanwhile, Apple hopes to restore part of the remaining land to a wetland restoration area and build walking paths for possible public use in a nature trail or park.
Apple plans to create a wetland restoration area on about 220 acres of the land that it will not use for future data centers and related facilities.
The company committed in 2021 to invest approximately $430 billion (TapTechNews note: currently about 3.09 trillion RMB) in the US over the next five years in various development projects. These projects include a campus in North Carolina, as well as data centers in Iowa, Texas, and California.
Apple's other data centers in the US are located in Arizona, California, Nevada, North Carolina, and Oregon.
According to a report from the Waukee city government, The project will include repairing and relaying field drain pipes to better manage rainwater runoff from adjacent farmland. In addition to repairing the field drain pipes, Apple also needs to install sanitary sewers and water pipes on site.
The city council staff has recommended approval of the plan. Apple will submit to the city council on August 13, 2024, seeking formal approval for the project.
Although Apple's future plans to expand the data center in Waukee are unlikely to encounter any resistance, there are occasional protests about the large power and water resource demands of technology companies for data centers. Apple's data center plan in Athenry, Ireland, has triggered some public complaints about environmental assurances, and related litigation is still ongoing.