Google Called Its Water and Power Use a Secret. Copy-Paste Disagreed

Google told Nebraska regulators that the electricity and water used by its three data centers in the state were trade secrets. Then it filed reports in which the hidden numbers could be read by highlighting the black box and pasting the text into another document. According to 10/11 NOW (KOLN) in Lincoln, that is how the figures surfaced: Google's Lincoln site, run as Agate LLC, reports 52.65 megawatts of peak electrical demand and about 13 million gallons of water over the last year.

What was actually filed

Nebraska data centers must submit an annual report to the state's Department of Water, Energy, and Environment (DWEE). The requirement flows from Governor Jim Pillen's July 20 executive order, which has data centers self-report their effect on water, power grids and local infrastructure. A DWEE Data Center Task Force oversees the process, and reports were due September 30.

Google claimed trade-secret protection for the electricity and water entries under Nebraska statutes and administrative code, and did so for all three of its sites: Lincoln, Omaha and Papillion. The unredacted text still carried the numbers.

How a redaction fails

A proper redaction removes the underlying text from the file. An improper one only draws something on top of it. In a PDF, text and the shapes drawn over it are separate layers. A black rectangle placed over a figure hides it visually while the characters remain in the file, so a cursor selection grabs them anyway. This is a well-known failure mode, and it is why careful filers use tools that strip the content, or flatten the page into an image, before publishing.

The rule that matters here: if the secret can be copied, it was never removed.

What the numbers say

The reporting offers a few figures, with context from the outlet:

• Agate LLC (Lincoln): 52.65 megawatts at peak demand; 13.299 megagallons of water across cooling towers, evaporative systems and site operations. The outlet says that is about 20 Olympic-size pools and under half of what the City of Lincoln reported using on September 29. Floor area is 288,530 square feet.
• Fireball Group LLC (Papillion): the heaviest water user of the filers, at 547.88 megagallons for 2025.
• All six reporting centers as of September 30: 765 million gallons combined last year.

Two terms are worth unpacking. Peak demand is the highest instantaneous draw on the grid, measured in megawatts. It sizes the power infrastructure but is not total energy consumed over a year. A megagallon is a million gallons. Cooling towers matter because they shed heat by evaporating water, which is why water use at these sites can be large.

The redactions also covered tax information. Per the report, Agate expects a 2025 tax refund of $55,822,472, Fireball $39,171,573.39 and Westwood Solutions LLC, Google's Omaha site, $22,558,881. The filings say the centers use or expect to use sales and use tax exemptions under the Nebraska Advantage Act, and that no rebates or incentive payments have been received or are expected under the ImagiNE Nebraska Act.

What is new and what is not

Nothing technical is new here. The disclosure rule, the trade-secret claim and the faulty redaction are all ordinary machinery. What is new is a state requiring this reporting at all, and the first public look at the numbers it produces. The source does not say whether Google or DWEE has responded. 10/11 filed a public records request on September 30 for the redacted Agate information.

Questions You Should Be Asking

• If utilities and tax figures are claimed as trade secrets, what competitive harm does publishing annual water and peak-power totals actually cause, and who decides?
• Did the state accept filings with redaction boxes over live text, and does DWEE check submissions before posting them publicly?
• Are the figures now circulating the official numbers? The reporter pulled them from hidden text, and the records request is still pending.
• Peak megawatts are not annual energy use. What does the public need, in what units, to judge a site's real grid and water burden?
• If your own company files documents with agencies, who verifies that redacted content is removed from the file rather than covered?

What To Watch Next

Watch how DWEE answers the records request and whether it keeps the trade-secret designations, since that will show whether the exposed numbers become the public record or get pulled back. Also watch whether corrected filings appear in the DCR program listing, and what the remaining reports show once they are submitted.