DUBUQUE COUNTY ZONING
1225 Seippel Road, Dubuque, Iowa 52002
TO: Dubuque County Board of Supervisors
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FROM: Ed Raber, Planning & Development Dir., Ed.Raber@dubuquecountyiowa.gov, 563-690-3035
DATE: October 22, 2026
RE: Data Center Gap Analysis – Surface & Groundwater Testing and Monitoring
As the County investigates the impacts of data centers, gaps are identified in our ability to measure or fully understand a particular metric or condition. The availability of groundwater is a metric that the County or State does not have available data on to provide an understanding for good decision making.
There is a considerable amount of ongoing surface water and well testing going on across Dubuque County, including some testing being conducted by Dubuque County. There is an opportunity to enhance the existing testing into more of a monitoring regimen and expand its gap areas of availability of groundwater, not just its condition.
The Dubuque County Watershed Department has conducted routine monthly surface water testing at 58 sites across the County's HUC-12 sub-watersheds. A dashboard of testing results for all sites can be accessed through the website, www.dubuquecountywatersheds.org. The Watershed Department developed this dashboard in the summer of 2026, and is working to build on that to create additional ways for users to track individual testing sites and to see test results over time.
The hand-collected water samples are tested for the following metrics:
Conductivity
Total Dissolved Solids
Transparency (cm)
Chloride (mg/L)
Phosphate (mg/L)
pH (mg/L)
Nitrites (mg/L)
Nitrates (mg/L)
Dissolved Oxygen (mg/L)
Temperature (C)
E.Coli (CFU/100mL)