The development of AI is so rapid that experts find it difficult to measure the exact growth rate. Such a breakneck pace of growth comes at a high cost to residents in areas where AI data centers are located. Rising utility bills are a common concern for residents, and in Georgia, residents are being displaced due to eminent domain because data centers require more space. But at the scale these facilities are being built in the United States and around the world, it’s natural to wonder whether data centers are polluting groundwater and introducing unnecessary pollutants into local water sources. Unfortunately, it is possible.
Data centers can reduce an area’s water pressure or lower water tables through excessive consumption, but when operating properly, they don’t actually pollute water sources. While the risk of the worst-case scenario is never zero, there hasn’t been a clear case of a data center polluting the local water supply…yet. Data centers use refrigerants and chemical additives – like PFAS, chlorine, biocides and others – in water to cool their servers to remove scale and combat corrosion, so a leak could potentially penetrate the ground and contaminate groundwater. Any leak would be catastrophic.
Is there cause for concern?
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As data centers continue to move into rural areas, more focus will be placed on water security. That’s exactly what happened in Cheyenne, Wyoming, when construction of a Meta data center caused the town’s water recycling facility to shut down for months. In this case, the data center did introduce a rare bacteria into the city’s water reclamation system, but it was flushed with city-supplied water, the data center was not even operational, and no pollutants were introduced into the drinking water.
Similarly, Amazon agreed to pay $20.5 million in exchange for admitting no fault in a lawsuit filed in Oregon over nitrate-polluted water. On the surface, this makes it seem like Amazon is trying to cover its tracks, but the tech giant is only one of the defendants in this case (there are 17 in total) and the quality of the groundwater has been questionable in the past. Amazon and others agreed to settle to avoid litigation costs.
It would be surprising if the problems stopped right away, but that’s probably not the case. Data centers are growing at an alarming rate, which will only increase water consumption and increase the risk of spills or environmental disasters.
