In Yellowstone County, a showdown is looming over a data center

From her home near Broadview, Claire Johnson depends on a well. When she heard plans for a 1,100-megawatt data center campus on the prairie north of Billings, she went to the Yellowstone County commissioners with a question: What would happen to her water?

The 1,100-megawatt Quantica Big Sky Campus would rank among the largest single power loads proposed in Montana. Yellowstone County, where it would rise, says the state’s 2025 Right to Compute Act has cast doubt on its authority to regulate the project through zoning, permits or an interim pause. Residents turned to the ballot, pushing for a voter referendum, and the county went to court over the first petition’s validity.

“Our home’s all out in that area on wells. We don’t have city water,” Johnson told commissioners during a public meeting on Aug. 11. “Where’s my well water coming from? Has anybody thought about the effects of this? My well is shrinking as it is, with all the incoming influx of new people living out that way. Put a data center in out there, and all that water scares the hell out of me.”

The campus plan calls for 1,100 megawatts of demand. A NorthWestern Energy letter of intent covers 500 megawatts initially, growing to 1 gigawatt, subject to regulatory review. Quantica has separately requested grid interconnection for up to 7,235 megawatts of proposed generation and storage. For comparison, NorthWestern says its Montana retail electric supply peaks at about 1,300 megawatts. The campus plan is about 85 percent of that peak.

Houston-based Quantica Infrastructure launched July 28, 2025, backed by EnCap Investments’ Energy Transition arm. It introduced Big Sky Digital Infrastructure as its flagship development platform a week later. No tenant has been announced. Quantica says it would build and pay for the additional generation in its interconnection applications and expects the campus’s first building to operate in 2029.

Buildout Tracker: Quantica Big Sky Campus

Local leaders across Montana have taken different approaches to the data center issue. Missoula County imposed a one-year moratorium in July on new or expanded data centers outside city limits while it studies their effects. Yellowstone County officials say the Right to Compute Act complicates similar action on land near Broadview. The two county responses have become a test of how much room Montana law leaves for local decisions.

Yellowstone County, home to Billings and smaller communities such as Broadview, had an estimated 172,692 residents in 2025, up 4.8 percent from its 2020 base, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

At two August meetings, residents described their concern in personal terms. 

Morgan Nichols, a horse trainer who recently bought a home in Shepherd, asked: “Where are the guarantees that I will still have clean water for my horses? Who will promise that I can still grow all my crops, or will my water usage be severely limited?”

Others told commissioners they wanted time to study the project’s effects. 

“You’ve got the authority to do it. I think it’s a fair way to step back and look at this,” said Gene Jarussi, urging interim zoning. “Nothing is very simple in this world, unfortunately, and this is not a simple thing either.” County Attorney Scott Twito told commissioners Aug. 4 that they have no authority over water rights or electric rates, which are regulated by the state.

The Right to Compute Act took effect April 16, 2025. It declares a fundamental right to own and use computational resources and says government restrictions must be “demonstrably necessary and narrowly tailored to fulfill a compelling government interest.” In a Sept. 22 letter to state lawmakers, the Yellowstone County commissioners called the law “overbroad.” They said it “invites the argument” that ordinary zoning and permitting restrict the private use of computational resources and must meet that demanding test. The board asked lawmakers to clarify local authority over data centers. It said it took no position on the developments themselves.

Petition organizer Kassi Solberg told commissioners Aug. 18 that volunteers collected 14,980 signatures in five weeks. “We want a seat at the decision-making table. We want a vote,” she said. The first ordinance would have required countywide voter approval for data centers. After a Montana Supreme Court ruling on a citizen-initiated wind-farm ordinance raised questions about county powers, commissioners voted July 7 to seek a court ruling on the petition’s validity. Quantica intervened in the case.

Barb Crawford, a Billings resident, told Yellowstone County commissioners Aug. 18 that she had researched AI companies, though she was less familiar with the laws governing them. “My feeling is they’re moving too fast,” she said. “They can’t know, much less solve, the problems that they’re creating.”

“Let us take that decision off your hands,” Crawford said. “Let us vote.”

On Aug. 4, Twito told commissioners that a deadline created by a 2025 law meant signatures had likely been due July 13, before petitioners or county elections staff knew it. The elections office had given organizers a later date. The filing window, on the county attorney’s reading, had already closed. “If a citizen’s ability to participate is lost because a mistake was made by the government itself, why should the people be the ones who suffer the consequences of that mistake?” Christina Liniger asked at the Aug. 18 meeting.

“I am not asking you to vote for or against Quantica. I’m asking you to trust the people that you represent enough to let them decide for themselves,” Liniger said. John Alverson, who said he grew up playing pond hockey in Broadview, put the grievance directly to the board: “This commission has repeatedly asked the public for its grace and understanding, and now we ask you for fairness. We ask you to make right the mistakes that you’ve made in this process and to put this measure on the ballot.”

Residents also challenged limits on petitioning at county property and MetraPark during the county fair. Alverson accused the commission of using “the sheriff’s office to suppress free speech at the Metra.” Interim Sheriff Kent O’Donnell told the board Aug. 11 that two people were detained while deputies investigated and that one “put physical hands on a deputy.” He added: “Nobody was tackled at the fair. Nobody was drugged out of the fair.”

A second petition seeks a May 4, 2027 vote. It would require approval by two-thirds of participating voters for new, expanded or existing data centers, a category that would include the Quantica campus once operating. It also calls for a county study and interim zoning. County materials say it needs 27,600 valid signatures. “Petition – Validity of Initiative” was the county attorney’s item on the Oct. 6 regular agenda.

The Montana Department of Environmental Quality is taking comments on the proposed public water-supply well through Nov. 6. A road agreement for the drilling phase is on the commissioners’ Oct. 27 agenda. Quantica says its plan calls for a well 4,000 to 5,000 feet deep in the Madison Aquifer and about 20,000 gallons a day of water during operation.

Montana’s Legislature does not convene until January 2027. The county’s request to change the law, the second petition’s path to a May vote and the state’s well review are moving on separate schedules. Johnson’s question to commissioners remains immediate: “Who’s gonna deal with that with me? Who’s gonna help me with that? I can bet nobody but me.”