The Marysville City Council voted unanimously July 14, to ban data center construction for six months, making it the first incorporated city in Snohomish County to freeze development in an industry that can strain water systems and electrical grids.

The moratorium follows a similar 5-0 emergency vote by the Snohomish County Council on June 24 covering unincorporated land. Neither ban applies directly to Everett, but both narrow the available development footprint in the region as data center operators scout the Pacific Northwest for sites.

What Marysville banned

The six-month freeze covers any building whose principal use is managing or transmitting digital data. Businesses that run servers as part of a different primary operation are exempt. Data centers are not currently defined in Marysville's municipal code, City Administrator Jennifer Stapleton told the council.

"We're not saying 'no' to data centers," council member Kelly Richards said at the July 14 meeting. "We're just trying to figure out what we are actually willing to accept and what our environment can accept."

Water is the central concern. Stapleton said a large data center can draw 5 million gallons per day, or 1.8 billion gallons annually. Marysville's water supply comes from multiple sources, complicating any single large-user hookup.

City spokesperson Lauren Chomiak said in an email to the Everett Herald that Marysville will use the pause to finish water and sewer master plans and rate studies. The goal is to ensure that data centers, if ultimately allowed, bear the full cost of infrastructure use rather than shifting costs to other ratepayers.

The moratorium expires automatically after 60 days if the city does not hold a public hearing. That deadline falls around Sept. 12, based on the July 14 passage date. No hearing date has been announced.

A regional pattern

Marysville joins a growing list of jurisdictions hitting pause. Snohomish County's June 24 moratorium covered unincorporated areas. Skagit County and Seattle have enacted similar freezes. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed an executive order July 14 imposing the first statewide moratorium on hyperscale data centers requiring more than 50 megawatts of power.

Snohomish County Councilmember Nate Nehring, who introduced the county's moratorium, wrote in a June 24 op-ed that he hoped cities would follow the county's lead. The county moratorium does not bind incorporated cities, he noted, but he called on them to consider similar policies.

Local utility context

Snohomish County PUD, which serves Everett, considers any customer requesting more than 2.5 megawatts of electricity a "large load," according to a May report in the Everett Herald. Hyperscale data centers often require hundreds of megawatts. The PUD reported it was actively planning for potential large-load customers, though no data center proposals have been publicly announced for Everett.

No Everett city official has publicly addressed whether the city will pursue its own data center restrictions. The Marysville council's next required step is a public hearing by approximately Sept. 12.