Data Centers Raise Concerns About Water

It seems that Georgia is becoming the place that data centers are looking to locate to. While there are benefits to the centers, there are also some cons and one of those issues could be water.
According to the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI), the tapping into fresh water sources by the centers could put nearby communities at risk.
According to an article released by the EESI in June 2025, a medium-sized data center can consume up to roughly 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling purposes, equivalent to the annual water usage of approximately 1,000 households. Larger data centers can each “drink” up to 5 million gallons per day, or about 1.8 billion annually, usage equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.
Together, the nation’s 5,426 data centers consume billions of gallons of water annually. One report estimated that U.S. data centers consume 449 million gallons of water per day and 163.7 billion gallons annually (as of 2021). A 2016 report found that fewer than one-third of data center operators track water consumption. Water consumption is expected to continue increasing as data centers grow in number, size, and complexity.
Now that Georgia is on the map for the centers, citizens are concerned about the water usage and the affect it might have on the water sources.
In March, the city of Griffin agreed to supply treated water to the city of Hampton with a maximum amount of up to 5 million gallons of water per day. Part of that supply was for a new data center. The agreement calls for the water to be provided in a phased manner. For the first three years, Griffin would only supply 750,000 gallons per day.
The primary water source for the city of Griffin is the Flint River, the Dr. Brant D. Keller Water Treatment Plant and Reservoir near Molena. The Flint River separates Pike and Meriwether counties and that becomes a concern for some of the residents of Meriwether County.
According to a story printed in the Pike County Journal newspaper in March, Gordon Rogers of the Flint Riverkeeper says the organization is keeping an eye on the Hampton project and Griffin’s permits to withdraw water from the reservoirs and the Flint River.
The story quoted Rogers as saying, “It is the Riverkeeper’s, and other conservationists’ job to keep an eye on the drought aspect of this water usage. We’ve never seen all of the upper Flint utilities operate at the top end of their permits during a drought. That’s never happened because they haven’t yet approached the top end of what they’re legally allowed to withdraw.”
He did express concerns about the discharge of water and was quoted in the story as saying, “The owner of the water system – which is essentially the citizens – need to be conscious of how big those permits are and how much water is being shipped away. That is their future. Their permits will likely never get any larger. And, on the discharge end, part of conservation is making sure that when people are done with the water, it’s treated to a suitable quality – and then returned to the system, whether it’s a creek that connects to the river or to the river itself. There’s going to be some evaporation at a data center as it cools the operation which is what the water is used for,” he said. “We need the water to be clean and available for citizens. If it is being put back into system upstream of where it was taken out – and in this case it would be – then that’s not such a bad thing. If the water is clean it can actually be beneficial. But that’s a big if. It’s got to be clean.”
The story also noted that Rogers said there are several additional data centers being proposed east of Highway 41 that would like not be return to the Flint River.
According to my research, Georgia does experience drought and historically such droughts have caused measurable reductions in surface water, groundwater and soil moisture and that impacts agriculture, municipal supplies and ecosystems.
It is true that Georgia needs industry and jobs but we must also be mindful of the future of our children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and so on. If data centers are going to be a part of the future of Georgia, we need to make sure our water sources are protected.