Prineville Data Centers and Infrastructure

What the public record shows about data center growth, groundwater, electricity infrastructure, agriculture and the questions that still remain in Central Oregon.

What we know so far

The scale is bigger than it looks from the road.Meta's Prineville campus started at about 120 acres. By 2024, it had grown to roughly 375 acres with 11 data center buildings.Apple started with about 160 acres. Its campus has grown to roughly 364 acres, with three buildings constructed and another three approved.The city changed its urban growth boundary six times between 2012 and 2017, primarily to accommodate data center development and expansion.That matters because these campuses did not just fill vacant industrial lots inside an existing city boundary. Prineville kept moving the line.In 2013, land tied to Meta and Apple development was brought inside the urban growth boundary, followed by another 96 acres for Apple.In 2014, another 114 acres were added for Apple.In 2015, the city added 160 acres near the airport for data center development that ultimately did not happen there.Then in 2017, another 38 acres were added for Meta.The city's current planning documents still treat large industrial development as a land-use issue. They specifically talk about locating future large industrial sites in ways that avoid greater conflicts with agricultural uses around Prineville.That is one of the pieces I want to keep pulling apart.How much land actually changed use?What was on those parcels before the data centers?How much additional land was needed for substations, transmission lines, roads and water infrastructure?And how far does the real footprint of a data center extend beyond the fence around the buildings?City of Prineville Economic Opportunities Analysis

Electricity infrastructure

Prineville needed a lot more than a few new utility connections once the data centers started growing.Pacific Power records show new transmission infrastructure being built between existing substations in and around Prineville, including the Corral, Friend, Ochoco and Ponderosa substations.One 2018 land use application describes a project moving power between existing Pacific Power substations with new poles and transmission lines. It also references a second phase involving two triple-circuit 230/230/115-kV lines between the Friend and Ochoco substations.That is the part I want to keep digging into.The data centers were not just large buildings that happened to use electricity. Their growth was happening alongside major changes to the local transmission system.Apple's Prineville campus also includes its own roughly two-acre substation.What I do not have yet is the clean timeline I want.I want to know which transmission projects were built specifically for Meta or Apple, how much capacity each project added, which company requested it, and how the costs were divided between the data centers, Pacific Power and other customers.That last question matters more now than it probably did when Prineville's first data centers were built.Oregon regulators are currently dealing with the much larger question of how utilities should charge new customers using more than 25 MW. The state has already changed Pacific Power's rules so very large new customers have to pay a greater share of the upfront infrastructure needed to serve them.That does not tell us how the original Prineville projects were financed.But it gives me a pretty good reason to go back and find out.Pacific Power transmission project land use applicationOregon Public Utility Commission: Large Customer Demand

Why the infrastructure picture is hard to pin down

The challenge with Prineville is that the infrastructure story is scattered all over the place.One record tells you about a transmission line.Another tells you about a substation.A city planning document tells you when land was brought inside the urban growth boundary.A utility filing might explain who requested the power.A water document tells you something completely different.But none of those records sit down and say:This data center needed this much power.This project was built for it.This company paid this amount.And this is what changed for everyone else.That is the part I am trying to reconstruct.Some of the infrastructure clearly lines up with the years when Meta and Apple were expanding. That makes it worth following.It does not automatically tell us which project belongs to which company, what would have been built anyway, or how much of the cost was pushed onto the broader system.Prineville is a good example of how a place can change dramatically while the paper trail still makes you work to see the whole picture.So I am treating the infrastructure here like a puzzle.What was already there?What got added?What came first?Who asked for it?Who paid for it?And how much of the system Prineville has today exists because two of the biggest data center operators in the world decided to keep building here?

Infrastructure

The buildings are only the obvious part.Once Meta and Apple started expanding in Prineville, the systems around them had to grow too.That meant transmission lines and substations for electricity. Water supply and wastewater infrastructure. Roads. New utility corridors. And, in several cases, moving Prineville's urban growth boundary so the campuses themselves had somewhere to go.The water side is especially interesting because Prineville did not rely on a single solution.The city already had a history of reusing treated wastewater. As data center demand grew, reclaimed water became part of the cooling-water picture. Prineville also developed its Crooked River Wetlands Complex, which expanded the city's wastewater treatment capacity while using wetlands rather than relying entirely on conventional treatment infrastructure.City of Prineville: Crooked River Wetlands ComplexElectricity followed its own path.Pacific Power records and city land use documents show substantial transmission work around Prineville, including projects involving the Corral, Friend, Ochoco and Ponderosa substations.Some of that work overlaps with the years Meta and Apple were expanding. What I am still working out is exactly which pieces were needed for which campuses and how the costs were divided.Then there is the land underneath all of it.Meta's campus grew to roughly 375 acres. Apple's grew to roughly 364 acres. Prineville changed its urban growth boundary six times between 2012 and 2017, primarily in connection with data center development and expansion.And the infrastructure has its own footprint beyond those campuses.A substation needs land. Transmission lines need corridors. Roads have to reach the sites. Water and wastewater systems have to reach them too.So one of the numbers I want for Prineville is not just how many acres Meta and Apple own.I want to know how much land the entire system around them occupies.City of Prineville Economic Opportunities AnalysisOne important example is the city’s Aquifer Storage and Recovery system. Apple contributed $8.7 million toward the project, which allows Prineville to store groundwater underground during lower-demand periods and recover it when summer demand increases. The project provides a concrete example of a data center operator participating directly in infrastructure intended to increase the capacity and resilience of a shared municipal system.But financing an individual project does not answer the larger question of cost allocation. This case study is examining which infrastructure investments were required as the data center campuses expanded, which were funded directly by the companies, which were financed through utilities or public entities, and what long-term obligations remain with the community.That distinction matters because infrastructure can remain in place for generations even as the industries and technologies that originally drove demand change.

What happened when

2010Meta opened its first Prineville data center.That matters because a lot of the infrastructure and land changes that came later make more sense once you realize how early the buildout started.2012Prineville began changing its urban growth boundary in ways tied to data center development.This is when the footprint starts to move beyond individual buildings and into city planning.2013More land was brought inside the urban growth boundary for Meta and Apple.Another 96 acres were also added for Apple.By this point, the data center story was already becoming a land-use story.2014Another 114 acres were added for Apple.The campuses were not just getting bigger. The city was continuing to make room for them.2015Prineville added another 160 acres near the airport for potential data center development.That project did not end up happening there, but the land move still shows how aggressively the city was preparing for more growth.2017Another 38 acres were added for Meta.By then, Prineville had changed its urban growth boundary six times between 2012 and 2017, primarily around data center development and expansion.2018Pacific Power transmission records show major electrical infrastructure work involving substations around Prineville, including Corral, Friend, Ochoco and Ponderosa.That is one of the places where the paper trail gets harder to follow.The timing lines up with years of major data center expansion, but the records do not neatly tell us which piece of infrastructure was built for which company.By 2024Meta's Prineville campus had grown to about 375 acres with 11 data center buildings.Apple's campus had grown to about 364 acres, with three buildings built and another three approved.That is roughly 739 acres between the two campuses.And that is before counting substations, transmission corridors, roads, water infrastructure and everything else needed to support them.City of Prineville Economic Opportunities AnalysisPacific Power transmission project land use application

What the records establish

## What the records establishPrineville did not just get a couple of data centers.It reorganized around them.Meta opened its first Prineville facility in 2010. Apple followed. Over the next several years, both campuses expanded and the city repeatedly moved its urban growth boundary to make room.By 2024, Meta's campus had grown to about 375 acres with 11 data center buildings. Apple's campus had grown to about 364 acres, with three buildings built and another three approved.Between 2012 and 2017, Prineville changed its urban growth boundary six times, primarily in connection with data center development and expansion.That part is not speculative. It is in the city's own planning history.The electrical system changed too.Pacific Power records show major transmission work involving substations around Prineville, including Corral, Friend, Ochoco and Ponderosa.What the records do not hand us cleanly is the part I actually want.Which data center needed which project?How much new capacity was added for Meta?How much was added for Apple?What would have been built anyway?Who paid for what?Those answers are still scattered across utility records, land use files and regulatory documents.The water story is different.Prineville already had a history of reusing treated wastewater before the data centers showed up. As the campuses grew, reclaimed water became part of the cooling-water system instead of relying entirely on potable water.That is important because Prineville is not just a story about resource demand.It is also a story about a small city trying to build around that demand.The records also establish something else that is easy to miss if you only look at the campuses themselves.The footprint is bigger than the fence line.The data centers needed land, substations, transmission lines, roads, water infrastructure and wastewater infrastructure.So when I look at Prineville, I am not just counting buildings.I am trying to count the system that had to grow around them.City of Prineville Economic Opportunities AnalysisPacific Power transmission project land use applicationCity of Prineville: Crooked River Wetlands Complex

Sources & primary records

## Sources & primary recordsMost of what I am using for Prineville comes from city planning records, utility filings and state documents.The city records are especially useful because they show how the data centers changed the physical map of Prineville over time.City of PrinevilleThe city's Economic Opportunities Analysis is one of the most useful records so far. It lays out the growth of the Meta and Apple campuses, the number of buildings, acreage and the history of urban growth boundary changes tied to data center development.City of Prineville Economic Opportunities AnalysisCity wastewater records also help explain Prineville's long history of reclaimed water use and the infrastructure built around wastewater treatment and reuse.City of Prineville Wastewater System HistoryThe Crooked River Wetlands Complex is another piece of that system.City of Prineville: Crooked River Wetlands ComplexPacific PowerTransmission and land use records help show how the electrical system around Prineville changed as large industrial loads grew.One of the records I am using describes transmission work involving the Corral, Friend, Ochoco and Ponderosa substations.Pacific Power transmission project land use applicationOregon Public Utility CommissionThe PUC is useful for understanding the broader question of how Oregon utilities handle very large electrical loads and who is expected to pay for new infrastructure.Oregon PUC: Large Customer DemandOregon Health Authority and state groundwater recordsState agencies are also investigating contamination in private wells north of Prineville.Those records are important context, but I am keeping that investigation separate from the data center story unless the evidence gives us a reason to connect them.Oregon Health Authority: Crook County Well InvestigationI am still looking for the records that answer the harder questions.Facility-level water use.Electrical capacity added for Meta and Apple.Who paid for specific transmission and substation projects.Parcel history before the campuses expanded.And the infrastructure sitting outside the property lines that does not show up when you only count the acreage of the data centers themselves.As those records come in, I will add them here and update the page.

About this case study

Prineville is still a work in progress.There are things we can document pretty clearly now: Meta and Apple expanded dramatically, the city moved its urban growth boundary repeatedly, and major water and electrical infrastructure grew alongside them.The harder part is figuring out exactly how those pieces connect.I am still looking for the records that show what individual facilities required, what was built specifically for them, who paid for it and what changed for the farms, ranches and other people already using these systems.I am also keeping a line between things happening in the same place and evidence that one caused the other. That is especially important with the groundwater problems currently being investigated around Prineville.The original records are linked throughout this page so you can see what I am working from.Last updated: August 27, 2026Clouds on the Range is an independent research project examining how data center development intersects with agriculture, water, energy, infrastructure and rural communities.

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