FOREST CITY, NC – APRIL 19: Outside air inlets are seen during a tour of the new Facebook Data Center on April 19, 2012 in Forest City, North Carolina. The company began construction on the facility in November 2010 and went live today, serving the 845 million Facebook users worldwide. (Photo by Rainier Ehrhardt/Getty Images)
John Loftus
An Arkansas mom and healthcare worker obtained a trove of documents about a data center deal between a local energy company and Google. Now, she is caught in a legal fight between the energy company and the news outlet she shared the documents with, with video surfacing of her being dragged into federal court Tuesday, weeping and scared.
Jessica Kivell recently sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Arkansas Public Service Commission, which regulates state electricity prices, regarding a data center deal between Entergy Arkansas and Google, according to the Arkansas Times. The government appeared to have mistakenly handed Kivell the documents, which she then sent to a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
The documents purportedly revealed that Google will not be paying the entire cost of infrastructure upgrades needed to power a new data center in West Memphis, despite claims to the contrary, according to the Arkansas Times. Google will only pay a third of the cost, $526 million, of a new solar array required to power the data center, the outlet reported.
Entergy sent attorneys and officials to a federal courthouse Tuesday to prevent the documents and information from remaining public, according to the Arkansas Times. The company sued the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and requested a restraining order on Kivell, arguing the documents contained trade secrets, the publication of which might violate state and federal laws.
Kivell was “visibly scared” when she arrived in court in her work scrubs after she arranged for her husband to pick up their daughter, according to the Arkansas Times, which was also listed in Entergy’s restraining order request. Throughout a closed-door portion of the hearing, Kivell wept loudly and continued to sob when she returned to the courtroom, the Arkansas Times reported.
U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky issued a ruling Wednesday that denied Entergy’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have prohibited the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from publishing information about the deal. He also denied the restraining order on Kivell.
Entergy disputed the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s reporting and called for a retraction Wednesday.
“The information first published in the Aug. 31 Arkansas Democrat Gazette contains a serious and careless mathematical error,” Entergy alleged. “The calculation accounts for only 12 months of payments rather than the full twenty-year term of the agreement — a fact that was known to the paper but not included in its math.”
“Using the figures published in the article — $443 million plus $83 million minimum annually over 20 years — the total would be approximately $2.103 billion, not the amount reported. That distinction is significant,” the company went on. “In fact, as demonstrated by the evidence submitted to the Arkansas Public Service Commission, Google is not only paying its cost to serve but is delivering $1.1 billion in other benefits to Arkansas customers.”
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette later released a statement in response to Entergy on Wednesday evening, alleging that Entergy “operates on a fallacious and unchecked assumption that the figure in question was the result of a mathematical calculation. This is untrue.”
“Entergy never inquired with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette about the source of the number. The figure in question, $526 million, was cited in documents obtained in the records request,” the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette said. “The number, in other words, was not the product of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette performing calculations.”
“Independent of us,” the statement continued, “Google repeatedly has cited the same figure of $526 million to other news outlets as well as to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Entergy, in fact, performs calculations in its statement that we have not seen substantiated by the records.”
Google said in a statement that it is “fully committed to covering 100% of the power and infrastructure costs for our West Memphis data center.”
“While upfront payments total $526 million,” Google continued, “our ongoing monthly rates over the 20-year agreement will completely fund our operational footprint.”
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