Compliance Alert: Kootenai County Moratorium

Jurisdiction: Kootenai County Type: county, ID Status: expired (previously repealed)

Status Evidence

According to the October 2025 report Avoiding AI: Kootenai County works towards total ban against data centers, the 182-day emergency moratorium has expired. County officials confirmed the moratorium was lifted after passing new regulations that ban data centers over the aquifer and require conditional use permits elsewhere, as noted in Some Mountain West counties impose moratoriums on data centers, as national pause is proposed.

Scope

A 182-day emergency pause on all new building and development permits for data centers in unincorporated Kootenai County. The pause was designed to give officials time to draft zoning regulations to protect the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer from the extreme water and power demands of data center facilities, as detailed in Moratorium imposed as data centers look to Kootenai County.

Ethical Concerns

• Potential degradation of the Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer water quality from data center cooling practices
• Extreme water consumption (up to 5 million gallons a day) threatening the sole source of drinking water for over 600,000 people
• High electrical consumption and noise pollution impacting the local community