Data Centers and Water Usage
The short version: Environmental Law Institute's webinar breaks down how data centers guzzle water for cooling, often in already-stressed regions, with too little public accountability.
Our Take
The math here is simple and unsettling: one facility slurping 300,000+ gallons a day means a single building can out-drink a small town, and nobody voted on that. The Environmental Law Institute is doing the unglamorous but essential work of putting policy experts in a room to ask how we got here and what governments can actually do about it. Worth your time.
What we keep coming back to is the pattern of siting. Companies aren't just building data centers where power is cheap — they're building them where water is scarce, betting that permitting offices won't ask hard questions or that the public won't notice until the well runs low. Drought-prone counties in Arizona, Texas, and Georgia are absorbing facilities that treat municipal water systems like an unlimited input, not a shared resource with actual limits.
The fix isn't mysterious: real water-use disclosure, recycling and closed-loop cooling requirements, and utility deals negotiated in the open instead of behind NDAs. Until that becomes standard practice, communities are stuck hoping their local officials read the fine print. Check our facility map to see what's being built near you, and visit our take-action page if you want to push for real water accountability before the next groundbreaking.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Environmental Law Institute, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.