Are AI Data Centers Draining Our Water? The Data Tells The Story.

Our Take

Corban Uncovers A.I. lays out a pattern that should bother anyone who thinks local government means local accountability: county boards signing NDAs before they even know which tech giant they're dealing with, then voting yes to billion-dollar projects hidden behind shell names like Balloonist LLC. Public Citizen's review of 30-plus deals across 14 states tells us this isn't a Wisconsin quirk — it's the standard operating procedure for how hyperscale data centers get sited in America.

The shell-company-plus-NDA combo isn't paperwork trivia. It's how communities end up locked into water and power deals, tax abatements, and zoning changes before residents get a real say — and often before officials themselves know who they're actually negotiating with. By the time the Meta or Google or Amazon name gets attached, the ink's dry and the leverage is gone. That's the story behind every 'mystery project' headline: it's not mysterious to the company, only to the people who'll live next to the substation and pay for the water main upgrade.

We track these deals as they surface at the map, and if your county is being asked to sign something before you're told what it is, our take-action page has steps for pushing back before the vote, not after the groundbreaking. Credit to Corban Uncovers A.I. for pulling the underlying contracts — go watch the full breakdown.