A Data Center Drained 30 Million Gallons of Water Unnoticed (politico.com) 72
A Georgia data center developed by QTS used nearly 30 million gallons of water through two unaccounted-for connections before residents complained about low water pressure and the county utility discovered the issue. "All told, the developer, Quality Technology Services, owed nearly $150,000 for using more than 29 million gallons of unaccounted-for water," reports Politico. "That is equivalent to 44 Olympic-size swimming pools and far exceeds the peak limit agreed to during the data center planning process." From the report: The details were revealed in a May 15, 2025 letter from the Fayette County water system to Quality Technology Services, which outlined the retroactive charge of $147,474. The letter did not specify how many months the unpaid bill covered, but when asked about it Wednesday, Vanessa Tigert, the Fayette County water system director, said it was likely about four months. A QTS spokesperson said the timeframe was 9-15 months. Once the data center was notified, it paid all retroactive charges, a QTS spokesperson said in an email, noting the unmetered water consumption occurred while the county converted its system to smart meters.
The Fayette County water system confirmed the data center's meters are now fully integrated and tracked. Tigert, the water system director, blamed the issue on a procedural mix-up. "Fayette County is a suburb, it's mostly residential, and we don't have much commercial meters in our system anyway," she said. "And so we didn't realize our connection point wasn't working." The incident became public last week when a county resident obtained the 2025 letter to QTS through a public records request and posted it on Facebook, prompting outrage from residents concerned about the data center's water consumption. [...]
Tigert, who sent the 2025 letter to QTS, said the utility didn't know about the water hookups because the connection process "got mixed up" as the county transitioned to a cloud-based system while also trying to accommodate an industrial customer. Tigert also said her staff is small and at capacity. "Just like any water system, we don't have enough staff. We can't keep staff," she said. "I've got one person that's doing inspections and plan review, and so he's spread pretty thin." She said it's possible her staff did know about hookups but that she hadn't been able to locate the inspection report. "I may have hit 'send' too soon," she said about the 2025 letter to QTS. While the utility charged the data center a higher construction rate for the unapproved water consumption, Tigert confirmed the utility did not penalize or fine the data center. For what it's worth, the Blackstone-owned company says its data centers use a closed-loop cooling system that does not consume water for cooling. The reason for last year's high water use, according to QTS, was the temporary construction work such as concrete, dust control, and site preparation.
Once the campus is fully operational, it should only use a small amount of water for things like bathrooms and kitchens. But that point could still be years away, as construction and expansion in Fayetteville may continue for another three to five years.
The Fayette County water system confirmed the data center's meters are now fully integrated and tracked. Tigert, the water system director, blamed the issue on a procedural mix-up. "Fayette County is a suburb, it's mostly residential, and we don't have much commercial meters in our system anyway," she said. "And so we didn't realize our connection point wasn't working." The incident became public last week when a county resident obtained the 2025 letter to QTS through a public records request and posted it on Facebook, prompting outrage from residents concerned about the data center's water consumption. [...]
Tigert, who sent the 2025 letter to QTS, said the utility didn't know about the water hookups because the connection process "got mixed up" as the county transitioned to a cloud-based system while also trying to accommodate an industrial customer. Tigert also said her staff is small and at capacity. "Just like any water system, we don't have enough staff. We can't keep staff," she said. "I've got one person that's doing inspections and plan review, and so he's spread pretty thin." She said it's possible her staff did know about hookups but that she hadn't been able to locate the inspection report. "I may have hit 'send' too soon," she said about the 2025 letter to QTS. While the utility charged the data center a higher construction rate for the unapproved water consumption, Tigert confirmed the utility did not penalize or fine the data center. For what it's worth, the Blackstone-owned company says its data centers use a closed-loop cooling system that does not consume water for cooling. The reason for last year's high water use, according to QTS, was the temporary construction work such as concrete, dust control, and site preparation.
Once the campus is fully operational, it should only use a small amount of water for things like bathrooms and kitchens. But that point could still be years away, as construction and expansion in Fayetteville may continue for another three to five years.
But the real cost is increased service prices (Score:1)
How much does this additional strain on the water system end up costing the residents, both in terms of their monthly bills and the later infrastructure upgrades required? The data centers are shifting their true costs to the communities around them.
Re:But the real cost is increased service prices (Score:5, Informative)
there's no long term impact. it's just for construction.
read TFS which, this time, does include very relevant info.
that shows the headline and TFA is mostly "bury the lede" FUD:
For what it's worth, the Blackstone-owned company says its data centers use a closed-loop cooling system that does not consume water for cooling. The reason for last year's high water use, according to QTS, was the temporary construction work such as concrete, dust control, and site preparation.
Once the campus is fully operational, it should only use a small amount of water for things like bathrooms and kitchens. But that point could still be years away, as construction and expansion in Fayetteville may continue for another three to five years.
Re: But the real cost is increased service prices (Score:2)
Umm yeah okay .gif
Re:But the real cost is increased service prices (Score:4, Insightful)
there's no long term impact. it's just for construction.
Do you actually believe that? I mean, yeah sure “we asked them what was up and they gave a flimsy excuse” doesn’t mean you have to believe it!
The only thing that points towards them maybe telling the truth is it might be obvious if the data center were operating and you don’t want to get caught in a provable lie. However it is also possible the data center is partly operating while construction continues and they figure “hey there aren’t people coming and going, who will know if the data center is operating as opposed to testing equipment if we get caught!”.
Re:But the real cost is increased service prices (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not a flimsy excuse, it's a plausible one. But considering "Blackstone owned" I'm not sure that I believe it.
Also, even if it's true it's "more than they agreed to".
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Still, though... do we need these data centers?
Remember, before it goes into the cooling loop, they add a bunch of chemicals to the water so it doesn't corrode the copper water lines or aluminum heat blocks, and doesn't leave any water scale or anything else. So, when they dump that water to change it out, have to wonder how good those chemicals are for the environment.
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there's no long term impact. it's just for construction.
Do you actually believe that? I mean, yeah sure “we asked them what was up and they gave a flimsy excuse” doesn’t mean you have to believe it!
The only thing that points towards them maybe telling the truth is it might be obvious if the data center were operating and you don’t want to get caught in a provable lie. ...
Yes, i believe them. It's a matter of the basic set-up of the place of whether they use evaporative cooling or not. It's a whole different heat exchanger infrastructure. I mean, i didn't look into their building plans and approvals etc, but the claim is entirely plausible and it's a weirdly specific claim to make if it's not true, and as you said it's trivially proven if it's not true.
And also there's no firm accusation from anyone outside of the implication of the author of the article that the datace
Re:But the real cost is increased service prices (Score:5, Insightful)
there's no long term impact. it's just for construction.
read TFS which, this time, does include very relevant info. that shows the headline and TFA is mostly "bury the lede" FUD:
That's never how this works out. Water is cheaper than electricity for cooling so the more water you use the less you spend, whether that's literally just dumping water back into the sanitary sewer system or through evaporative chillers. In nearly every circumstance these facilities are doing the calculations to figure out which is cheapest and what they can get away with.
Trusing what comes out of Blackstone publicity persons mouth is painfully naieve in any context, bur especially so in light of the history of how these facilities operate.
Re:But the real cost is increased service prices (Score:4, Interesting)
That's never how this works out. Water is cheaper than electricity for cooling so the more water you use the less you spend
False. The use of water for cooling and how the loop is designed is a more complex issue that depends greatly on local economics, regulations, and environment. But really your post is irrelevant because...
Ground has been broken. The site is under construction. At this point of any project not only has the cooling system been designed, it will have also been purchased, and permits have been agreed and applied for and very likely already granted. There's no scenario where someone is saying now it's closed loop only to change to open loop before it's finished other than that person flat out lying, and that lie would be easy to uncover.
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Also, anything sounds big when you put it in gallons. Doesn't sound so big when you mention that's 92 acre feet, the amount used by less than 20 acres / 8 hectares of alfalfa per year. Or when you mention that a typical *closed loop* 1GW nuclear reactor uses 6-20 billion gallons of cooling water per year (once-through uses 200-500 billion gallons, though most of that is returned, whereas closed loop evaporates it)
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Nuclear reactors use most surface water, not ground water. So it doesn't normally affect drinking water or ground water levels.
Also, closed loop does not evaporate. The loop is not closed if stuff escapes from it. It just runs around in the piping system over and over again, but eventually water will become "dirty" and it will be dumbed into the sewers and replaced with new water.
You can arrange cooling also with non-closed loop where you use evaporation, as it was done in the old days, but in new data cent
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Datacentres are no pickier. You can even cool a datacentre with saltwater, you just need a heat exchanger.
You're arguing with the actual terminology used in the nuclear industry. "Closed loop" or "closed cycle" designs have the water pumped in a cycle through cooling towers. The towers lose water to evaporation, taking heat with them, but the rest of the water is
Re: But the real cost is increased service prices (Score:3)
business.
it is more profitable to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission
Re: A town told one of the data centers (Score:2)
Thatâ(TM)s why the towns need to get serious with âoeoh, you built it anyway? Thatâ(TM)s great, weâ(TM)re confiscating everything on the land, including all those GPUs, and youâ(TM)ll be billed for demolishing the building.â
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
The guy is also bitching about people protesting at his house. Bitch you were elected and you're ignoring the will of the majority of your electorate for a
For making concrete? (Score:3, Informative)
Concrete requires approximately 180 liters of water to make 1 cubic meter of concrete.
So that amount of water would make about 6.5 million cubic meters of concrete.
Which seems like a helluvalot of concrete....
Re: For making concrete? (Score:2)
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That's what happened to the "Killdozer" guy. He was using a buried cement mixer drum as a septic tank and the city was like "you gotta hook up to the sewer, shit is literally flowing into everyone else's land from your plac
Re: For making concrete? (Score:4, Interesting)
That guy is held up as some kind of libertarian hero when he really was a mentally disturbed psycho
Those two things go hand-in-hand a lot more than I am comfortable with.
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It has to be on-site for that amount.
Not necessarily. Sorry for the AI copy, but it's a better summary than I can write: "A typical concrete specification, such as ASTM C94, generally limits a truck mixer to a maximum of 300 total revolutions from the time water is added to the cement and aggregates until complete discharge." There's also a 90-minute limit that starts as soon as you add water.
I've participated in a handful of huge pours where they batched offsite. (I don't recall how many cubic yards, order of magnitude around 7,000) But
Re: For making concrete? (Score:2)
Construction sites do use a lot, but not enough to drain an entire reservoir. Otherwise theyâ(TM)d change themselves into either the source of a small river, or a reservoir in themselves.
Re:For making concrete? (Score:4, Interesting)
The campus is 615 acres, or ~2.5 square kilometers. The article states there are plans for up to 16 buildings, but doesn't exactly go into sizes. While not a reasonable estimate, if we assumed 100% concrete coverage at an average thickness it would end up in the ballpark of 650,000 cubic meters. Obviously, they're not going to be 100% covered in concrete. However, we also know they didn't use all the water on concrete.
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So that amount of water would make about 6.5 million cubic meters of concrete.
Sure, if you ignore the rest of the sentence which mentioned what the water was used for you would come to that conclusion. Come on man, you got so far there were only 5 additional words after concrete to reach a full stop and for a civil project those words are very relevant.
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This is just pandering (Score:5, Insightful)
The myth that AI data centers are using up all the water comes from some incorrect citations that have then swept through sensationalist and poorly fact-checked (looking at you Washington Post) news stories. One major contributor was Karen Hat's "Empire of AI" which overstated the usage by three orders of magnitude. (She did publicly correct that, but you can guess how many people are interested in the non-sensational numbers).
For proportion, California almond growers use 90x the fresh water of all US data centers combined.
Which is not to say that a data center can't still be a strain for some communities, but not in a more extraordinary way than e.g. the local university wanting to maintain a golf course.
But "AI IS SUCKING UP ALL THE WATER PEOPLE NEED TO SURVIVE!!!" is a wonderfully concrete - if completely false - complaint for people uneasy about the recent advances in technology to latch onto
For what it's worth, the Blackstone-owned company says its data centers use a closed-loop cooling system that does not consume water for cooling. The reason for last year's high water use, according to QTS, was the temporary construction work such as concrete, dust control, and site preparation.
Once the campus is fully operational, it should only use a small amount of water for things like bathrooms and kitchens. But that point could still be years away, as construction and expansion in Fayetteville may continue for another three to five years.
So this has nothing to do with the building being a "data center" at all. The water used if for construction and it could just as well be a stadium or an apartment complex. But since people are talking about data centers using water we'll take any opportunity to jump in on that even if it's amplifying a misconception by mentioning it in adjacency to unrelated events.
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Wikipedia writes for the book that started the water concerns:
In November 2025, after fact-checking by Andy Masley and others, Karen Hao stated on her X account that the published version of the book mistakenly overestimates the water usage of a datacenter in Chile by a factor of 1,000x due to a unit conversion error. The discovery of this error was covered in media outlets such as Wired.
The problem is that the author asked the city for how many liters of water the residents use and the city responded how m
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For proportion, California almond growers use 90x the fresh water of all US data centers combined.
Which is not to say that a data center can't still be a strain for some communities, but not in a more extraordinary way than e.g. the local university wanting to maintain a golf course.
But "AI IS SUCKING UP ALL THE WATER PEOPLE NEED TO SURVIVE!!!" is a wonderfully concrete - if completely false - complaint for people uneasy about the recent advances in technology to latch onto
There's a slight difference for farms you might want to consider before climbing on that horse: FOOD FEEDS PEOPLE. Now I'm not one to say flood farming, particularly for almonds, is a great idea. That being said part of the reason farms in California (or even Arizona) use all that water is because of the idiotic way we handle water rights in the US. They stop using that much water... they don't get as much a year later when they might need more water to maintain the crops due to altered weather.
Golf cou
Re: This is just pandering (Score:2)
Yes, if we want to solve our water problems we should make it possible for farmers to not use water themselves and yet keep their allotment in future years by allowing them to divert the unused portion to an aquifer.
Re:This is just pandering (Score:5, Informative)
There is something a bit more fundamental at work here. If any single business requires ANY utility to upgrade its infrastructure to deliver power, water, or other things, then that one business should be required to pay for ALL of those infrastructure upgrade costs. Why should the local community be expected to cover the expenses that are ENTIRELY caused by a single business? Yes, water usage and power draw by themselves are something to be concerned with, but this comes back to the old idea of "socialism for the wealthy and rugged individualism for everyone else" being seen as a major problem. SOCIETY should not be paying businesses to make the owners even more wealthy while contributing very little to the local community. You can be sure that town board members that are the ones who keep approving these things have their members getting paid off while the community ends up paying the price. Suggesting those people should just be voted out is the sort of clueless comment that often comes back, because those running for office tend to be wealthy themselves, or they are retired and have enough money where they don't care what happens to those who still need to work for a living.
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but not in a more extraordinary way than e.g. the local university wanting to maintain a golf course.
I mean ... sure... how many universities maintaining golf courses are currently being built in the middle of bumfuck nowhere next to small country towns?
if completely false
The stupid part about people claiming water use is a cancer from datacentres is the equally stupid people on the opposite side of the argument who use comments like "completely false". Any absolutionist on either side of the issue is an idiot. The people you criticise, and you. AI sucking up water that people need to survive is a topic that is situationally
Fines arenâ(TM)t fair? (Score:2)
Utility not auditing it's service (Score:5, Insightful)
The most concerning part should be that the utility isn't auditing it's service. The most basic check is to compare water pumped or otherwise brought into the system against water usage billed to customers. Those two numbers should be equal, any discrepancy indicates leaks or other unaccounted-for draws. Any discrepancy should also be relatively stable, with any large variations correlated to known main breaks. You especially audit things immediately after a major change like bringing smart meters on-line to catch problems like this.
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I am not a municipal water guy, but my high-level understanding from news articles and picking up little bits of information over time is that leaks representing quite a lot of water loss like 5-20 percent is pretty common.
This is why you see boil orders whenever there is a loss of pressure the assumption is that because the positive pressure went away nasty things could have come in the same leaks in the pipe that normally are letting all that water out..
That 5-20 percent is a big spread and a lot noise to
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if it was affectign water presure for the other water users to complain, then it was no small amount. And the fact they claim closed loop and only use it for a tiny amount is BS. The amount they used is staggering!
Better title: (Score:5, Insightful)
"Bureaucratic slip-up allows facility under construction to delay paying for water bill for several months. Coincidentally, facility happens to be a data center."
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It's not just about the water bill, who pays for infrastructure upgrades needed to deliver water/power? When the local community is expected to pay the price for infrastructure upgrades imposed by a single business pulling resources, that's a big problem, unless that business wants to make the local community shareholders where the increased utility costs they will pay FOREVER going forward are more than offset by the shares in the business going up in value. You want socialism for the wealthy, then the
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When the local community is expected to pay the price for infrastructure upgrades imposed by a single business pulling resources, that's a big problem
In Australia, you're charged for both water usage and your connection on every bill. A home pays a small amount for their connection. A business that uses similar amounts of water will need the same type of connection, so will pay a similar connection charge. A business that uses fair more water than others will pay a higher connection fee to maintain the infrastructure to support that connection. It's literally user pays based on your usage. Is that not how it's done in the US?
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Is that not how it's done in the US?
It varies. Each city or water-supply-company decides how to bill its customers, within limits set by law.
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Literal water pirates- (Score:2)
This is not an isolated problem (Score:2)
If you look at https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu... [unl.edu], you can see just how parched is a good portion of the U.S. They have a pull-down menu up at the top for comparing this week's with last week's.
According to https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com], roughly 60% of the U.S. is under drought conditions.
Makes no sense (Score:2)
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The water was used for construction, not for cooling.
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You are correct, but that costs extra. In the land grab/rush, data centers are bypassing that to speed construction. Often signing sweet heart deals with local politicians and functionally bribing them to let them in. Or worse, just building and daring people to sue after the fact. The issue is that if companies move fast enough, and stall long enough, it becomes fait accompli because blocking something is often legal, but taking away the fruits of a rammed through, legally stalling based construction, is m
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Read the body of the post, not just the headline. It IS a closed loop system
Another question (Score:2)
The water went into the site, but where did it go then? If it wasn't bound up in concrete - someone else noted that concrete is usually trucked in - and even if it was used in an open-source cooling system, where was it discharged? Didn't someone else notice 30 millions of waste water or outflow somewhere?
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It's all lies! The water was stolen and sold to aliens!
Re: Another question (Score:2)
This is a thing that happens, if by aliens you mean foreign weed growers operating unlicensed grows in our country. But it's farmers illegally selling them the water.
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Like TFS said, dust control. So it evaporated or percolated into the ground.
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Like TFS said, dust control. So it evaporated or percolated into the ground.
30 million gallons just evaporated or percolated? Yet it didn't do that from the source before being drained. I imagine there would at least be a few large puddles on site. I'm still dubious.
Failure of the county (Score:1)
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It needs to go beyond just what they consume, but also, for ALL infrastructure upgrades associated with it. You open a new sports stadium, the stadium owners should be paying for highway and rail construction, plus maintenance for those things going forward. You open a data center, the data center owners will generally not be paying for upgraded transmission lines, transformers, and even the cost of all new generators required.
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It needs to go beyond just what they consume, but also, for ALL infrastructure upgrades associated with it. You open a new sports stadium, the stadium owners should be paying for highway and rail construction, plus maintenance for those things going forward. You open a data center, the data center owners will generally not be paying for upgraded transmission lines, transformers, and even the cost of all new generators required.
Something similar happened with the Marcellus shale natgas drilling in my area. The gas companies improved the back roads they drove on, and in one case, repaved a whole length of highway after their very heavy equipment made a mess of it. The highway wasn't constructed for it (it was a road through an area where big trucks never went unless they took a wrong turn. The new length of highway is now sturdy, and very nice.
I actually had to be escorted through the area right after they wrecked the road. It wa
Hey, I know that place! (Score:2)
It sounds like the problem was at the Fayette water department. It's small, I know that much. Had to pay my bill in person once or twice when I lived there.
Dust control says it all (Score:2)
Don't underestimate the amount of water it takes to keep down the dust. It's not done with lawn sprinklers.
https://www.istockphoto.com/ph... [istockphoto.com]
Welcome to Arrakis! (Score:2)
Things like this should not be a simple fine. (Score:2)
Stop tolerating Corporate abuses of citizens.
Ragebait headline, followed by... (Score:2)
The data center will use a closed loop cooling system.
The water was consumed by construction activities.
More anti AI bullshit... (Score:2)