By Michelle Moore, Bridge2Blue
Virginia is officially in drought, with nearly the entire state experiencing moderate or severe conditions and parts of central and southern Virginia in extreme drought. The impacts for Virginia are serious: damage to crops, hay, pastureland; falling river, reservoir and well levels; and higher wildfire risk. These pressures affect farmers, residents, businesses, municipalities, and communities across the Commonwealth.
Data centers make it worse. Depending on the size and colling systems, a single data center can use 500,000 to 5 million gallons of water per day — at the high end, roughly the same daily use as more than 15,000 homes. Now multiple that by 600 — the number of data centers in Commonwealth. Even if that figure reflects peak use, it shows the sheer scale of the problem and the growing stress this level of use has local water supplies, infrastructure, the environment, and the broader economy.
Virginians already understand that data centers carry real costs, including higher utility bills, high-voltage transmission lines running their neighborhoods, air, noise, and water pollution, and declining property values. That concern is extends to water use as well. In June, a Public Policy Polling survey found that 72% of Virginians believe the data center industry needs more regulation and oversight.
And Even More Water Needed to Generate Electricity for Data Centers
And this is only part of the story. Data centers use enormous amounts of electricity and generating that power also uses large amounts of water at power plants. In 2023, data centers consumed about 26% of Virginia’s total electricity supply, a higher share than in any other state.
The actual water use footprint therefore includes both the water used for on-site cooling and the large amounts of water power plants consume each day to generate the electricity that powers these enormous industrial facilities. Virginia has recently approved two new large fossil-fuel powered power plants to help meet the electricity demand driven by data centers.
Data Center Water-Driven Use is Not Equal to Agricultural Use and Golf Courses
Some industry defenders say data centers use less water than farms, lawns, golf courses, or pools. But that argument overly simplifies key issues: what kind of water they use, where it comes from, where it goes, what infrastructure it strains, and how much additional water is needed to generate their electricity.
Here are five key points to consider about the cost of data center water use in Virginia:
- Many data centers rely on municipal drinking water and wastewater systems that also serve residents and local businesses.
- Many discharge industrial cooling water directly into sewer systems, straining infrastructure designed for much lower residential and commercial flows.
- Their heavy water use draws down local water supply sources, like rivers and reservoirs.
- Unlike farms, data center water use does not support Virginia’s agricultural economy or return water to the environment in the same way.
- Power plants also use large amounts of water to generate electricity that powers Virginia’s roughly 600 data centers.
Virginia is one of the worst examples in the country of weak data center and utility expansion oversight. Residents across the Commonwealth are directly bearing the brunt of the compounding costs of lax state and county-level regulation and antiquated incentives and tax policies that continue to favor the industry.
While much of the debate around Virginia’s final budget focused on whether data centers would “pay their fair share,” one thing is very clear: closing the budget gap is not the same as addressing the underlying causes of these long-term, compounding problems caused by the data center and utility industries. Real solutions will not come from kicking the can down the road.
Virginians deserve better stewardship now.
Tell your legislators and the Governor that Virginia needs real tax reform for the industry including linking tax incentives to bringing clean energy on their dime and reducing pollution from dirty backup diesel generators, stronger limits on data center and utility expansion, utility cost reforms so data centers, not ratepayers, cover the infrastructure and energy costs they create, and tougher natural resource, environmental, and health and safety protections for both new and existing facilities in our communities: Take Action: Stop Data Center Handouts.
