Entergy Arkansas has asked for a temporary restraining order that would prevent the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from publishing anything else about Google’s utility deal, or any other “trade secrets” the Arkansas Public Service Commission mistakenly turned over in a Freedom of Information request, reports Austin Gelder of The Arkansas Times.
Gelder reports, “Gary D. Marts Jr., an attorney with Wright Lindsey Jennings who represented Entergy at Tuesday’s emergency hearing, went so far as to ask Rudofsky to consider forcing the Democrat-Gazette to pull down a story published Monday night. That story was based largely on documents that came into the possession of Jessica Kivell, a young mom whose interest in the ongoing controversy over data centers prompted her to shoot out several Freedom of Information Act requests.
“Kivell’s requests turned up a passel of documents of great public interest that revealed, among other things, that Google will not actually be picking up the entire tab for electricity infrastructure upgrades needed to power a massive new data center in West Memphis. Apparently unaware that the Public Service Commission gave her the documents by mistake, Kivell shared them with Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Sydney Sasser.
“Sasser’s piece revealed that despite claims made during Entergy’s and Google’s fervid PR campaign, Google will not be picking up the total cost for a new solar array being built to feed its new data center’s enormous electricity appetite. Google will pay for only a third of the new solar plant.”
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