Fort Peck Tribes ban discussions with data center developers

Tribal Chairman Floyd Azure told Montana Free Press Wednesday that the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes have been approached by three different companies interested in building data centers on the reservation in the last year.

“We asked them questions,” he said. “One of the main questions is what is this going to bring to the tribes and how will the tribes benefit. And they didn’t have an answer. So, what we took from that is, all they want to do is utilize our resources. And I thought, ‘No. There’s no way we’re going to give that up. We do not want them here.’”

Tribal Executive Board member Roxanne Gourneau said the intent of the measure is to ban data centers from the reservation.

“Banning all discussions prevents developments,” she wrote in a message to MTFP Thursday. “Fort Peck historically struggled with acquiring clean, drinkable water due to contamination. We cannot compromise our water and environment with uncertainty after millions were invested to acquire drinkable water.”

Data centers are large facilities that house computers and servers that store and process data. Increased demand for artificial intelligence tools has created rising demand for the data centers that enable them, and the Trump administration has promoted accelerated development of the facilities.

Data centers can bring temporary construction jobs, some permanent jobs and tax revenue to a community. They can also strain power supplies and require millions of gallons of water daily for cooling purposes.

The Fort Peck Tribal Executive Board, the governing body of the tribes, includes 12 members, a chairman, a vice chairman and a sergeant at arms, all of whom are elected. Azure said the board’s main concern is that data center development could harm the tribe’s natural resources. The Fort Peck Reservation encompasses 2 million acres and is home to expansive agricultural lands and Fort Peck Lake, an enormous reservoir with 1,500 miles of shoreline.

“We’ve got enough problems here from previous companies coming on and destroying our land, and we basically get stuck holding the bag,” Azure said. “One thing we are taking care of is our natural resources.”

As data center developers increasingly seek large parcels of undeveloped land, some tribal lands have emerged as an attractive option. The authors of a 2025 Payne Institute for Public Policy article argue that tribal-private partnerships could help solve the growing demand.

“Native Nations possess a unique combination of assets: large and contiguous land bases, growing energy portfolios, water rights, sovereign authority, local expertise, and a pipeline of technical talent,” they wrote.

A 2026 U.S. Department of Energy blog post also encouraged tribes to partner with data center developers, framing data center expansion as a potentially “big economic opportunity for tribes.”

Azure isn’t convinced. He said developers likely target reservations because they are not subject to state or municipal regulations, which can delay or halt big infrastructure projects.

Missoula County commissioners, for example, in July approved a temporary moratorium on data centers, giving the county time to update regulations to mitigate potential impacts on public health and natural resources.

“A lot of reservations are poverty-stricken, and basically what happens is they bring us trinkets and things and they want us to do whatever they want, but we’re not going to do that,” Azure said.

Tribes nationwide have dealt with data center development in different ways. The Seminole Nation General Council in Oklahoma unanimously voted to ban data center discussions and developments. In February, the Cherokee Nation, also in Oklahoma, established a task force to study the environmental and economic impacts of data centers on the reservation. Following the release of the task force report, which showed widespread community concern and detailed potential environmental consequences, the tribe voted to ban data center development on its land. A new data center recently opened on the Hoopa Valley Reservation in California to support tribally owned broadband.

Across Montana, data center proposals have been met with significant public ire. A proposed data center in Bonner, east of Missoula, stalled when the property owner withdrew support for the project after considering community concerns about potential environmental impacts. Grassroots organizers in several counties have launched efforts to put the power to approve data centers in the hands of voters.