Drought puts scrutiny on data centers in Western US
The short version: An old AP report on The Dalles, Oregon shows Google's water fight with residents was a warning sign the industry never heeded.
Our Take
This AP Archive clip is from 2021, but it reads like a preview of every fight we're covering now. Dawn Rasmussen watched her well drop 15 feet in 16 years while Google's data centers sat on the edge of town pulling from the same aquifer. Credit to AP for capturing the human side of this early — a homeowner, not a hydrologist, sounding the alarm before "data center water use" was a headline category.
The Dalles became one of the first places where the public actually learned how much water these facilities drink for cooling, largely because Google fought in court to keep the numbers secret before local reporting forced partial disclosure. That pattern — quiet permitting, opaque water contracts, and residents finding out only after their wells run low — has repeated in Georgia, Arizona, and plenty of towns since. Drought doesn't create the conflict; it just exposes who already had the leverage in the deal.
Four years on, the buildout is bigger and the water and power asks are bigger with it. Check our facility map to see what's been sited near you, and if your town is negotiating a water or tax deal right now, our take-action page has what you need to ask the right questions before the contracts are signed, not after the wells drop.
This is GridWatch the USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of AP Archive, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.