00:02While construction of its first Tasmanian AI factory continues on Launceston's outskirts,
00:08Firmus Technologies has been promoting two other planned data centres,
00:12one at Bell Bay and the other at the site of an old paper mill at Wesley Vale near Devonport.
00:17At the weekend, the company published answers on its website to frequently ask questions about the Wesley Vale project.
00:24In one section, it said there's no Taswater connection to the Wesley Vale site,
00:28so it will likely use water from TAS Irrigation.
00:32But the company did not want to highlight this yet as TAS Irrigation had not yet agreed to supply them
00:37and Firmus falls outside its normal customer base, which is agriculture.
00:42After the ABC sent questions to Firmus about this, the lines were removed from the website.
00:48Peak farming body TAS Farmers doesn't like the prospect of irrigation water going to a data centre.
00:53The irrigation water in Tasmania has been designed and funded for the purpose of irrigation and to develop farming,
01:00not for other industrial pursuits at Wesley Vale.
01:03Tasmanian irrigation says it's given no undertaking to Firmus and it's legally only allowed to supply water
01:10for agriculture and hydrogen production.
01:12Any other use would require community consultation and consideration by the Tasmanian government.
01:18We haven't actually received any proposal along those lines.
01:21I do note as well that Firmus more broadly speak about their reduced water usage
01:27and their ability to capture significant amount of water even just with their onsite facilities.
01:32Firmus says it has not yet made a formal request to Tasmanian irrigation.
01:36It says it would mainly use rainwater for cooling and would start by carting in extra water
01:42if it can't get a connection from Tasmanian irrigation by the time the facility starts operating.
01:47To get a retry to that, it's just that your feeding can decide that you can make a sale might
01:47be able to operate.
01:48Reason forår, Bill, when requirements of fresh equipment,
01:48it's a direct and sunset period of the time being installed in the contact discussion.
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