this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2025
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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 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.