The company commissioned an independent groundwater study to investigate Morris’s concerns. According to the report, its data center operation did “not adversely affect groundwater conditions in the area”.
I’ve lived with well water. You must filter it and test it regularly because it changes. It can also go dry.
Edit:
The article is also claiming humid areas are good for evaporative cooling, which is incorrect.
Also that above ground runoff is affecting a well is hard to believe. Wells are deep enough that natural filtration removes any sediment.
In the article, this isn’t about pollution but sediment from very nearby construction. Yeah, that happens. Kind of why most decent municipal governments plan out stuff so you don’t have people on wells right next to giant buildings. The common exception being gravel quarries, they do regularly disrupt locals wells. This is on them. You should be building data centres in light industrial zones where everyone nearby is on city water.
But combine that with someone dumping thousands of gallons of wastewater into the ground basically across the street and weirder things are going to happen.
EDIT: Yeah, I don’t think they are dumping water into the ground. Scratch that out. These datacenters DO use lots of water, as in millions of gallons per day, the concern there is more about how the public utilities and incentives were structured. [Quote for millions comes from Kate Crawford’s Atlas of AI book, but the link was the the first data I could source, which looks less than that.]
I’m now thinking this article may be more about the person not liking the datacenter than it specifically affecting the well. Could construction cause some extra sediment to clog up the well intake? Seems likely.
I thought I found something earlier that alluded to it, but Lemmys on my phone and doing any real research is always annoying on it. I can try to find something. I know they do release very significant amounts of wastewater though. But whether that’s all back on public utilities or how it’s but back in the ground is unclear. I’ll see I can find anything specific.
I’ve lived with well water. You must filter it and test it regularly because it changes. It can also go dry.
Edit:
The article is also claiming humid areas are good for evaporative cooling, which is incorrect.
Also that above ground runoff is affecting a well is hard to believe. Wells are deep enough that natural filtration removes any sediment.
The whole article is questionable.
In the article, this isn’t about pollution but sediment from very nearby construction. Yeah, that happens. Kind of why most decent municipal governments plan out stuff so you don’t have people on wells right next to giant buildings. The common exception being gravel quarries, they do regularly disrupt locals wells. This is on them. You should be building data centres in light industrial zones where everyone nearby is on city water.
The article is also claiming humid areas are good for evaporative cooling, which is incorrect.
Also that above ground runoff is affecting a well is hard to believe. Wells are deep enough that natural filtration removes any sediment.
The whole article is questionable.
But combine that with someone
dumping thousands of gallons of wastewater into the groundbasically across the street and weirder things are going to happen.EDIT: Yeah, I don’t think they are dumping water into the ground. Scratch that out. These datacenters DO use lots of water, as in millions of gallons per day, the concern there is more about how the public utilities and incentives were structured. [Quote for millions comes from Kate Crawford’s Atlas of AI book, but the link was the the first data I could source, which looks less than that.]
I’m now thinking this article may be more about the person not liking the datacenter than it specifically affecting the well. Could construction cause some extra sediment to clog up the well intake? Seems likely.
I can’t find evidence that datacenters dump water into the ground.
https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-01/final-fonsi-ea-2251-rivian-stanton-springs-north-2024-12.pdf#page26
Does mention it is passed to a treatment facility, some is treated on campus, and other is stored.
So according to epa report it was not expected to affect local groundwater.
I thought I found something earlier that alluded to it, but Lemmys on my phone and doing any real research is always annoying on it. I can try to find something. I know they do release very significant amounts of wastewater though. But whether that’s all back on public utilities or how it’s but back in the ground is unclear. I’ll see I can find anything specific.
I have to filter the local water too because it’s very hard and tastes like crap. Hilariously the filter will eventually start to grow algae
algae isn’t about water quality, but sun. You either don’t change your filter frequently or your place has a nice exposure to sun (or both, of course)