AWS Hermiston data center, Hermiston, Oregon

Amazon Web Services is building its first Hermiston data center campus on Livestock Road in Umatilla County, Oregon, with two buildings under construction as of September 2025, Oregon Public Broadcasting reported. The Hermiston City Council was scheduled to vote on September 14, 2026 to finalize a wastewater and domestic water agreement with AWS. No result of that vote has been published.

The council approved a 25-year water service agreement with Amazon in February 2025, under which Columbia River water is pumped from October to March and stored about 1,500 feet underground in the basalt aquifer to cool Amazon's campuses. AWS pays to treat and inject at least 100 million gallons a year beyond its own cooling needs for the city's use, and Assistant City Manager Mark Morgan said AWS pays all construction costs and the same water rates as other customers.

"A lot of people think (data centers) use a lot more water than they actually do," Morgan told the council.

In August 2025 the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality fined Amazon $10,400 for violations at its Hermiston and Boardman sites, saying the Hermiston facility failed to monitor recycled water in 2024 and began building a new wastewater pond before submitting the plans for approval.

The council also approved a sewer main project in Feedville Road and Highway 207 in March 2026, funded 73.6 percent by AWS, after annexing 800 acres south of Feedville Road with a hyperscale data center designation in fall 2025. The Hermiston City Council makes the local decisions on Amazon's water and sewer deals, meeting at City Hall, 180 NE Second St.