A Data Center Drained 30 Million Gallons of Water Unnoticed (politico.com)
(Monday May 11, 2026 @11:30PM (BeauHD)
from the not-a-good-look dept.)
- Reference: 0183190154
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/05/11/2057211/a-data-center-drained-30-million-gallons-of-water-unnoticed
- Source link: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988
A Georgia data center developed by QTS [1]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.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988
> 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.
[1] https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988
these big tech gangsters (Score:2)
by FudRucker ( 866063 )
They need to be prosecuted without mercy, I want to see these bastards thrown in prison to do hard time on chaingangs cool hand Luke style
A town told one of the data centers (Score:2)
by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
To take a hike and the billionaire backing it just built it anyway and told the town to go fuck themselves.
You can't have billionaires and sovereignty. You can't have that much power in the hands of one person and pretend that you don't have to do what they tell you to do.
I mean I guess you can pretend. But at the end of the day when they say jump you're going to say how high on the way up.
For making concrete? (Score:1)
by innocent_white_lamb ( 151825 )
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)
by reg ( 5428 )
It's also unlikely they'd mix the concrete on site - most comes from ready mix plants. But construction sites do use a lot of water.
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: (Score:2)
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.