Thirsty Data Centers and the Water We Drink

Data Center water usage is a tightly held secret. The numbers of gallons consumed each day varies from thousands to hundreds of thousands to millions based on the report you are reading. Recently, Save Carbon County contacted the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) to get an understanding of the amount of water used by Data Centers in the Delaware River watershed. The Lehigh River is an important tributary of the Delaware River and is vital for managing the Salt Front that impacts drinking water for Philadelphia and New Jersey. The DRBC reported that no Data Centers in Carbon County had filed a draw request and that many Data Centers rely on Municipal Water Authorities who may or may not measure the draw from the Data Center. When a Data Center goes through a Municipal Water Authority (MWA) and the water draw from that MWA increases above a threshold, the MWA must file a request with the DRBC. Unfortunately, the request looks like the municipality is expanding the water draw to meet residential growth and doesn't indicate whether the increase is to service a Data Center. This gap in reporting can be catastrophic to our supply of drinking water and Data Centers must be included in MWA requests for water. The DRBC must add a requirement to MWA requests for water that include specifying any data centers in the municipality. The goal is to increase the transparency in water usage. Without asking the service providers why they are requesting more water, it's impossible to understand the impact of data centers on our Watershed. We need "Water Use Transparency" to ensure drinking water for our communities is available now and in the future.