In the first week of May, two data center developments, one in Arizona and another in Georgia, were caught taking public water without authorization.
In both cases, data center developers consumed water they were prohibited from taking, in communities already experiencing water stress, and in both cases it was the residents who discovered it.
When residents complained of low water pressure in Georgia or dust control efforts in Arizona, they unknowingly tipped off regulators in areas fraught with depleting water supplies, and added to an escalating conflict over data center water use across the country.
In 2023, U.S. data centers directly consumed 17.4 billion gallons of water, a figure projected to rise to between 38 and 73 billion gallons by 2028, according to the EPA. In Texas alone, a study by the Houston Advanced Research Center estimated data centers would use 49 billion gallons in 2025 and as much as 399 billion gallons by 2030—or the equivalent of drawing down Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country, by more than 16 feet in a single year. Texas is already in crisis: Reservoirs and groundwater are drying up statewide, Corpus Christi is preparing to declare a water emergency with 25% usage cuts, and communities are fighting over what remains.
And so, the residential complaints in Tucson and Fayette County are part of a larger pattern. Google’s data centers in The Dalles, Ore., a city of 16,000, consumed 355 million gallons in 2021, roughly a quarter of the city’s total water supply. Google funded the city’s lawsuit against a local newspaper that tried to obtain those figures through a public records request, arguing the data was a trade secret. A Meta data center in Newton County, Ga., reportedly disrupted nearby private wells, leaving families hauling water and replacing sediment-clogged appliances. In South Carolina, conservation groups fought Google’s permit to draw 1.5 million gallons a day. Meanwhile, in Utah, a data center proposal tied to Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary (a.k.a. Mr. Wonderful) drew nearly 3,900 public protests over a water rights application that would have shifted irrigation water to industrial use.
Now, more than 50 cities across the country enacted bans or moratoria on new data center construction—including Fayetteville, Ga.
“Being good neighbors is a top priority everywhere we operate data centers,” a Meta spokesperson told Fortune in a statement. “We commissioned a third party well study in Georgia, which confirmed there is no connection between the well issue and Meta’s operations or our data center. We remain committed to supporting the Stanton Springs community and have provided more than $4.5 million in direct funding to schools and nonprofits in the area.” The company also shared its water stewardship goals, including the company’s goal to become water positive in 2030, meaning Meta will restore more water than it consumers in the watersheds in which it operates. Google didn’t immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
Fayette County, GA: 29 million gallons and no water pressure
Throughout the entirety of last year, residents of the affluent subdivision Annelise Park, located about 20 miles south of Atlanta in Fayette County, Ga., noticed their water pressure was tanking, according to Politico. Despite the lack of wells in the county, it still prompted the county utility to investigate, and it found two industrial-scale water hookups feeding a 615-acre data center campus codenamed Project Excalibur, developed by Quality Technology Services (QTS), a company owned by Blackstone.
In May 2025, the Fayette County water system sent QTS a letter detailing two separate meters; one that was not installed with the county’s knowledge, and another that was not connected to QTS’ billing account. This week, the Fayette County Administration released a statement clarifying the letter, saying the problem stemmed after the county began upgrading all 33,000 residential meters to smart meters. When they switched, one of the two meters was still under the old system, and therefore, was not billing QTS. After the county discovered the error, QTS had consumed more than 29 million gallons, Politico reported, or the equivalence of 44 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
“Additionally, staff determined that water usage on the referenced meters above along with the Tyrone Road fireline meter significantly exceeds the peak volume originally approved by staff during the planning process,” read the initial May 15, 2025 letter, as reproduced in full at The Citizen. The letter documented retroactive charges of $147,474, which QTS paid—and which the county administration said was at a rate of “$6.46/per 1,000 gallons construction rate, which is double the normal retail rate for past water use.”
Asked why the county didn’t fine QTS, county water director Vanessa Tigert said the company is the county’s largest customer and that the relationship requires partnership, according to Politico. The QTS campus, which currently comprises 13 buildings spanning approximately 6.2 million square feet, is projected to generate $150 to $200 million annually in property tax revenue for the city. QTS says it will use a closed-loop cooling system that will not consume water for cooling once operational, and that the high water usage was tied to the temporary construction activities of concrete, dust suppression, site preparation.
Construction, however, is expected to continue for another three to five years.
“Any suggestion of improper water use by QTS is categorically false. A recent billing mistake meant that certain meters were improperly linked by Fayette County Water,” a statement from QTS to Fortune read. “Once flagged, the issue was corrected and all charges were paid.”
“Water use will be limited to employee needs like bathrooms and staff kitchens and roughly comparable to about four American households annually.” QTS also pushed back on claims that the water consumption was impacting residential water pressure. The bill accounts for roughly one year of usage.
Fayette County Administration then released a statement adding that the issue arose when the county upgraded all meters to smart meters. “Over the past year, QTS monthly usage is less than 1% of Fayette County Water’s current production and permitted capacity. Fayette County Water is allowed to produce 22,800,000 gallons per day and currently produces about 17,300,000 gallons per day.”
This all came forward with a resident running for a seat on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners. Local attorney James Clifton obtained the utility’s 2025 letter to QTS through a public records request and posted it on Facebook.
Drought conditions in Georgia have worsened since the project was announced, and today, the whole state is experiencing severe to exceptional drought, with destructive wildfires burning in the southern part of Georgia. Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency last month as a result.
QTS has a record of water-related regulatory issues at other sites. In Iowa, state officials discovered 40 unpermitted wells at the company’s data center site in Cedar Rapids in 2025, prompting Linn County to seek a $20,000 fine.
Tucson, Arizona: 650,000 gallons used for dust control
In August 2025, the Tucson City Council unanimously rejected any involvement with the Project Blue data center complex, originally linked to Amazon, which was to be sited just outside city limits. Given the region averages seven to 10 inches of rain per year, the council directly expressed concern over the region’s water and electricity usage in rejecting the project.
In less than a year, Amazon withdrew from the project, but the developer, Beale Infrastructure, purchased the land from Pima County and continued construction while seeking new partners.
Amazon didn’t immediately respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
Recently, a resident asked a city staffer whether the dust control water at the Project Blue site was coming from the city, and as a result, triggered an investigation into the site’s water usage.
Last week, City Manager Timothy Thomure sent a letter to Beale stating the city had discovered a contractor, Ames Construction, had obtained a construction water meter within Tucson’s service area and transported the water outside city limits to the Project Blue site, where it was being used for dust control–all without authorization. Beale said in a letter to the Arizona Daily Star that the city has indeed issued “a permit for temporary water per the normal course of business.”
Thomure demanded that Beale replace the two acre-feet of water used, which approximately 650,000 gallons, or roughly equal to the annual water usage of six to seven American households. Compared to operational data centers, it’s a fraction of the water consumed, but still, it’s a developer taking water from a city that had explicitly refused to provide it.
Beale said the city had issued a permit for temporary water through normal channels. City spokesman Andy Squire said the document was not a permit but an application for a construction meter intended for use within Tucson Water’s service area, and the contractor didn’t disclose that the water would be transported outside city limits.
Earlier this week, the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality issued a Notice of Violation to Beale for “excess dust that crossed property boundary lines and no use of dust control measures,” according to local station KGUN9.
Some developers increasingly site large projects just beyond municipal boundaries to avoid the state’s Assured and Adequate Water Supply law, which requires a demonstration that a development can meet its water needs for 100 years. Building outside city limits allows developers to sidestep that requirement while still relying on nearby water infrastructure.
Earlier this month, the lower Colorado River basin states of Arizona, Nevada, and California signed a new conservation agreement aimed at saving a million acre-feet of water from a river system that was first divided among the states in 1922, when the Phoenix metropolitan area had a population of roughly 30,000. Today it has about 5 million.
On average, a medium-sized data center consumes roughly 110 million gallons of water per year for cooling, which is enough to power the annual water use of about 1,000 households. Larger facilities can consume up to 5 million gallons a day.
This story has been updated with comments from Meta and QTS.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com