A state committee in Utah has ruled in favor of a newspaper that appealed a decision by the City of Bluffdale to keep the amount of water consumed by the National Security Agency's massive data center there secret.

The State Records Committee voted unanimously in favor of The Salt Lake Tribune, which made its case in a hearing Wednesday, the newspaper reported. The paper argued that Utah taxpayers had an interest in knowing how much water the city was selling to the spy agency

The city argued that by knowing how much water was used by the data center's cooling systems could help someone estimate how much computing power the facility was housing. Therefore, disclosing the numbers would compromise national security.

Committee members dismissed this argument during Wednesday's hearing, according to the Tribune. Ernest Rowley, a representative of local government interests on the panel, said the water belonged to the public.

Utah governor Gary Herbert's designee to the committee Patricia Smith-Mansfield said releasing the information would not jeopardize the NSA in her opinion.

Nate Carlisle, the Tribune reporter who has been leading the fight for disclosure of the records, told us in an interview Tuesday that the paper wanted there to be an educated discussion in Utah about the meaning of the NSA facility's presence in the state.

The water issue is especially acute in Utah because it is the second-driest state in the US, and the data center could be consuming more than 1m gallons per year, Carlisle said.

Finally, since the City of Bluffdale sells the water to the agency, its taxpayers have a financial interest in knowing how much money the city is making from the contract, he added.

Bluffdale officials may appeal the committee's decision, but there was no indication of their plans Wednesday, according to the Tribune.