1011now.com (station KOLN) reported that Google marked power and water use as trade secrets in state filings for its three Nebraska data centers, in Lincoln, Omaha and Papillion. The station said it highlighted the covered text, copied it into another document, and the numbers appeared. For the Lincoln site, run by Agate LLC, that showed peak power demand of 52.65 megawatts and about 13 million gallons of water last year. Fireball Group LLC in Papillion reported 547.88 million gallons for 2025, the most among reporting centers. The station also gave expected 2025 tax refunds: $55,822,472 for Agate, $39,171,573.39 for Fireball and $22,558,881 for Westwood Solutions LLC in Omaha.
The source does not say how the cover was applied, by whom, or in what file type. It does not say whether Google, the filing system or the state is at fault. The station separately filed a public records request on Sept. 30 for the redacted information in Agate's report. It has not reported a response from Google or the state. Six centers had filed by Sept. 30, reporting 765 million gallons of water together.
In the station's test, a cursor, copy and paste were enough to recover the covered text. For anyone filing or publishing sensitive figures, that is a reason to try the same check first.