Two more data centre projects in Alberta are not being required to complete formal impact assessments, which would evaluate factors such as environmental effects: Synapse’s one-gigawatt data centre campus in Olds and the Woodland Cree First Nation-led Mihta Askiy data centre project, about 500 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.
The exemptions come as the province has allowed celebrity investor Kevin O’Leary’s $70-billion, 7.5-gigawatt AI data centre project Wonder Valley, a proposal in northern Alberta, to bypass an environmental impact assessment.
“What we’re seeing here is a new sector that’s very resource intensive … including with respect to electricity generation and water use,” said David Wright, associate professor in the faculty of law at the University of Calgary.
“And yet at that very time when this new sector comes along, you see governments actually stepping back from environmental assessment and kind of going on faith that all is going to go well.”
As first reported by The Albertan, a March 3 email from Alberta’s Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas’ acting approvals program manager Karen Tomashavsky addressed to Synapse CEO Jason van Gaal stated the project does not require a provincial environmental impact assessment.
The Synapse project, which would include a 1.4-gigawatt natural gas power plant, has received backlash from nearby residents for its proximity to their homes and how quickly it seems to be moving forward.
The company’s plan was initially rejected by the Alberta Utilities Commission due to “significant deficiencies” in its application, but it has recently reapplied for approval.
The province’s decision said the Synapse project “is not a mandatory activity for the purposes of environmental assessment,” but a federal environmental assessment and other requirements may still apply.
A rendering of one data centre in Synapse’s proposed complex for Olds, Alta. (Synapse Data Center Inc.)
But when asked about the decision, Ryan Fournier, a spokesperson for Environment and Protected Areas, said that “no data centre project has been allowed to bypass an environmental impact assessment. Data centres in Alberta must follow the same environmental rules and regulations as any other industrial applicant.”
“Environmental impact assessments are determined through an established legal process under the Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, and even where an EIA is not triggered, proponents must still obtain all required permits, provide detailed technical assessments on impacts to air, land, and water, and demonstrate the project can be built and operated safely before any project can proceed.”
‘No further assessment’
The federal Impact Assessment Agency of Canada also decided on March 3 that the Mihta Askiy data centre project required “no further assessment.”
That means the project will not have to provide an impact statement, which would have required the proponent to engage with Indigenous Peoples and the public, assess the impacts of the project, and identify “measures proposed to mitigate these effects.”
In its notice of an early decision, the agency said “the potential adverse effects within federal jurisdiction … from the project would be limited or addressed through existing federal and provincial legislative and regulatory frameworks.” Those would include the Migratory Birds Convention Act, the Fisheries Act, the Species at Risk Act, and the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, among others, the decision said.
In an email to CBC News, the agency said its decision for the Mihta Askiy data centre was made prior to the Co-operation Agreement on Environmental and Impact Assessments for Alberta and Canada, which came into effect earlier this month.
The agreement, intended to reduce duplication through a single assessment process, determined that when a proposed project is primarily within the province’s jurisdiction, Alberta will undertake the assessment, relying on its “environmental assessment or regulatory processes to assess the effects of the project.”
WATCH | Wonder Valley exempted from provincial environmental impact assessment:
AI data centre in Alberta exempted from provincial environmental impact assessment
Exemptions haven’t always been made for data centres in Alberta.Â
Montreal-based data centre operator eStruxture said in an emailed statement that each of its facilities in Alberta have undergone environmental impact assessments. That includes its latest data centre, a 90-megawatt facility built to support AI workloads, scheduled to open later this year in the Calgary area.
Data centres not yet defined in provincial legislation
“The premise of environmental assessment is to look before you leap to understand the risks and potential costs before jumping into significant infrastructure and natural resources projects,” said Wright.
A fulsome environmental impact assessment at the outset of a project can also cover all of the assessment bases, he said, rather than relying on individual regulations to manage different aspects of the project.
And, he added, “you can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
But AI data centres are not currently defined under the province’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act, which is the primary legislation through which it manages regulatory requirements for air, water, land and biodiversity.
Instead, data centres are being treated as power plants would under the act, according to Darren Bourget, a regulatory assurance manager for the ministry, who spoke at an Olds town council meeting on March 23.
“The power plant itself is not going to be unusual for us and the backup emergency generation power isn’t going to be that unusual for us. So, I think we’ve got a pretty good grounding in that,” he said.
“I will admit to folks I’m a bit of an old dog, so I don’t know what this AI stuff is really all about. I just want to go and play hockey.”
Bourget clarified that while he and his department are under the Ministry of Environment and Protected Areas, they are not involved in the decision-making process for which projects have to complete an environmental impact assessment.
“Essentially, an EIA is required where you know the complexity and the scale of a project and the technology, resource allocation considers some uncertainty about the exact nature of the environmental impacts,” Bourget said.
The act defines types of activities (such as an oil refinery) that must have an environmental assessment and others that are exempt from them. Natural gas-fired power plants do not fall under “mandatory activities” in the legislation.
“Everything else is discretionary and this [the Synapse data centre project] falls into certainly that discretionary bucket,” Bourget said. “Essentially I would say … we view this project as a natural gas-fired power plant.”
But Wright said the power plants being proposed alongside the data centre projects are all quite sizable — the scale that “normally triggers application of federal and provincial environmental assessment regimes.”
“That component alone would justify environmental assessment. But given that these are large, broader projects with even more potential adverse impacts, there’s even more reason to go forward with a comprehensive environmental assessment,” Wright said.
‘I wouldn’t choose to live that close,’ says minister
Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Tara Sawyer attended a town hall on the topic of data centres and Alberta’s digital future on April 7.
In a recording of the event provided to CBC News by a resident who attended the town hall and confirmed by the minister’s office, Glubish said “I wouldn’t choose to live that close” to the Synapse project, in response to a resident’s question.
Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish and Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills MLA Tara Sawyer attended a town hall on the topic of data centres and Alberta’s digital future on April 7. (Nate Glubish/X)
Several Olds residents who oppose the development attended the event, including Bek MacIntosh.
She told CBC News she’s concerned data centres are not defined in provincial legislation and that this particular project is allowed to bypass a provincial environmental impact assessment.
“The major components that come with [the project] have emissions pollutants. Sound impact is going to be a huge one, and at this point in time, the regulatory process does not have anything in regards to human health assessments,” she said.
“While natural gas is something that they understand, there’s a reason those don’t go beside homes. Nobody places natural gas plants beside homes. But every data centre of significance is going to require a gas plant as a component.”
Bek MacIntosh attended the province’s data centre town hall with her daughter’s stuffed animal. (Submitted by Bek MacIntosh)
“The difficulty with that is we need to make sure we’re prioritizing human health if we’re going to be putting them near communities,” said MacIntosh.
At the town hall, Glubish said he wants to “get the regulatory environment right” so that data centres can be developed responsibly.
The Synapse project in Olds will still need approvals, including from the Alberta Utilities Commission, to move forward with development.