SAVRN. Engage SAVRN

Data Center Water Tracker

The water file

Water has replaced electricity as the sharpest local objection to data center development, and the rulemaking has moved faster than the measurement. Congress has generally deferred to state primacy over intrastate water allocation, so the binding rules are being written in state capitols and city halls while twenty-three federal bills sit in committee. The core problem is not that data centers use an extraordinary share of American water. It is that almost nobody is required to report how much they use, from where, or what they discharge.

Updated August 26, 2026 77 measures 84 primary sources 20 feeds polled weekly

Where the water actually goes

17.4 billion gallons
211 billion gallons

U.S. data center water consumption in 2023. The copper bar is direct cooling at the building. The grey bar is water consumed generating the electricity that building runs on. Roughly twelve times more water leaves at the power plant than at the site everyone is arguing about.

17.4Bgallons of water consumed directly by U.S. data centers in 2023, against 211B consumed indirectly at the power plants that run them
97%of water supplied to U.S. data centers comes from public water systems, not private wells
23bills in the 119th Congress touch data center water. One has become law, and it governs only military installations
Jan 1Virginia waterworks must begin reporting data center water sales as a separate category

The states

Fifty states, one taxonomy

Freshwater withdrawal by category, in billion gallons per year, from the U.S. Geological Survey's county-level compilation for 2015, the most recent year covering every state with a single taxonomy. Withdrawal is not consumption: most thermoelectric withdrawal is returned to its source, which is why that category leads in so many states. Fifteen states report irrigation only as a combined total with no golf breakdown, and those are labeled.

Click a state to open its file: the withdrawal ledger, every water measure that binds there, the interstate basin bodies that reach it, and a state agency ledger where a richer one exists. States with nothing located say so.

Figure 1

SOURCERivers, aquifers,public supply97% of data center water arrives through a public systemwithdrawPOWER PLANT211Bgallons consumed a yearevaporated cooling the turbinesthat make the electricityelectricityDATA CENTER17.4Bgallons consumed a yearthe only figure anydisclosure bill collects12x
Water is consumed twice on the way to a server, and the larger draw is the one no rule in this tracker measures. Twelve times more leaves at the power plant than at the building, and that ratio moves with the generation mix: about 2.1 gallons per kilowatt-hour in the hydropower-heavy Pacific Northwest against 0.13 in solar-heavy California. A facility can hold a near-zero water use effectiveness score and still carry a large footprint through its power purchase.

The number that got corrected

49 billion gallons became 25

49 billion gallons → ~25 billion gallons Houston Advanced Research Center
July 2025 to January 21, 2026

HARC's preliminary estimate of 2025 Texas data center water use was 49 billion gallons. Its formal report of January 21, 2026 revised the figure to approximately 25 billion gallons including direct and indirect use. The original number was carried by national and regional outlets; most did not publish the correction. HARC's revised 2030 range is 29 to 161 billion gallons, a spread of 5.5 times, and the variable that decides where in that range Texas lands is cooling architecture adoption.

Houston Advanced Research Center SAVRN, The 49 Billion Gallon Mirage

The tracker

77 measures, 26 states, one federal law

Every instrument located that governs, discloses, restricts or subsidizes data center water use. Federal bills are compiled from the Congressional Research Service report of July 31, 2026. State and local entries are drawn from legislative records, agency regulations, council minutes and local reporting. The regional layer covers interstate compacts and river basin commissions, which regulate withdrawals across state lines and are the least understood instruments in this subject. Each entry states what the instrument actually requires.

Alaska: 0 measuresAlabama: 0 measuresArkansas: 0 measuresArizona: 3 measuresCalifornia: 3 measuresColorado: 0 measuresConnecticut: 0 measuresWashington, DC: 0 measuresDelaware: 0 measuresFlorida: 1 measureGeorgia: 5 measuresHawaii: 0 measuresIowa: 2 measuresIdaho: 0 measuresIllinois: 1 measureIndiana: 1 measureKansas: 1 measureKentucky: 0 measuresLouisiana: 1 measureMassachusetts: 0 measuresMaryland: 0 measuresMaine: 1 measureMichigan: 2 measuresMinnesota: 1 measureMissouri: 1 measureMississippi: 0 measuresMontana: 0 measuresNorth Carolina: 1 measureNorth Dakota: 0 measuresNebraska: 0 measuresNew Hampshire: 0 measuresNew Jersey: 2 measuresNew Mexico: 0 measuresNevada: 2 measuresNew York: 1 measureOhio: 2 measuresOklahoma: 1 measureOregon: 0 measuresPennsylvania: 0 measuresRhode Island: 0 measuresSouth Carolina: 2 measuresSouth Dakota: 1 measureTennessee: 1 measureTexas: 6 measuresUtah: 2 measuresVirginia: 6 measuresVermont: 0 measuresWashington: 0 measuresWisconsin: 1 measureWest Virginia: 0 measuresWyoming: 0 measures
  • Enacted Binding law, regulation or ordinance now in force or with a set effective date.
  • Proposed Live and undecided: introduced, in committee, or awaiting a council vote.
  • Vetoed Passed the legislature and was rejected by the governor.
  • Failed Died in committee, missed a deadline, or was voted down.
  • No measure located Nothing found at state or local level. Absence of a rule, not absence of data centers.
  • Not shaded here Federal bills and the three interstate basin bodies span state lines and are listed in the table rather than colored on the map.

Rules that require a water figure to be published, from monthly utility reporting to annual operator filings. The largest group at every level of government.

Local

Fairfax and Prince William Counties, Virginia

Utility metering analyses

Enacted 2026

Measured per-building water use in the largest U.S. data center market

Utility-provided analyses report average daily use of roughly 18,000 to 38,000 gallons per day per building, with peak-day demand approaching 88,000 gallons per day, and substantial variability among facilities.

Included because it is measurement rather than mandate, and because it is the best available counterweight to the widely circulated claim that a typical data center consumes millions of gallons a day. Prince William County alone has more than 2,000 acres proposed for 37 data centers totalling 22 to 23 million square feet.

Center for Secure Water, University of Illinois

State

Louisiana

Groundwater registration

Enacted In force

Registration threshold at 50,000 gallons per day

Registration is required only for groundwater use exceeding 50,000 gallons per day.

Included as a floor case. A facility below the threshold, or one drawing from a public water system rather than its own wells, generates no state record at all.

E&E News

Local

Newton County, Georgia

Water system stress after Meta buildout

Enacted 2025 to 2026

The most documented local water case in the country

Reported effects rather than a rule. Residents reported dry taps, sediment and damaged appliances following construction of Meta's data center. County water rates are set to rise 33% from 2025 to 2027 against a usual 2% annual increase, and a 2025 report warns the county is on track for a water deficit by 2030.

Meta's facility is reported to consume about 500,000 gallons per day, roughly 10% of the county's total water use. The case became national when a member of Congress displayed a jar of discolored water from near the site at an EPA hearing. Included because it is the single most cited local water case in the country, and because it is a groundwater and construction-impact story rather than a cooling-volume story. The distinction matters: a closed-loop mandate would not have prevented it.

pressdemocrat.com

State

South Dakota

SB 135

Enacted Mar 30, 2026

Data Center Bill of Rights for Citizens

Requires full transparency of data center water usage, requires operators to work with water service providers so that their use is compatible with local supply, and gives counties and municipalities authority to decide whether a data center is welcome.

Signed by Governor Rhoden. The legislature set limits on data centers while rejecting a moratorium. Also requires data centers to cover their own electricity costs.

LegiScan

Regional

Susquehanna River Basin: NY, PA, MD

SRBC consumptive use approval

Enacted In force

20,000 gallons per day consumptive use threshold

Any data center consumptively using 20,000 gallons per day or more on a 30-day average requires Commission approval, including when the water comes from a public water supply, stormwater, wastewater or recycled sources. These are issued as Approval by Rule type (e), a general permit process in place since 2007.

As of early 2026 the Commission had issued only one permit for a hyperscale data center in the basin, for Amazon Web Services in Salem Township, Pennsylvania. The Commission notes that developers increasingly take water from existing public supplies, which avoids a withdrawal approval because the volume is already counted under the public supplier's own approval. The Commission also approved Constellation Energy withdrawals tied to restarting Three Mile Island to serve data center load.

srbc.gov

Federal

United States

P.L. 119-60 §1531

Enacted Dec 18, 2025

National Defense Authorization Act for FY2026

Expands the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Roadmap to estimate the additional electricity and water usage, and the anticipated effects on surrounding communities, from data centers built or expanded on military installations.

The only federal data center water provision enacted to date. It reaches DOD installations only, and the estimates are not required if producing them would delay the roadmap's triennial update.

U.S. Congress

State

Utah

H.B. 76

Enacted Effective May 6, 2026

Data Center Water Transparency Amendments

A large data center, defined as a facility withdrawing 75 acre-feet a year or more across one or more buildings totalling 10,000 square feet or more, must notify its water provider of anticipated water consumption between 90 and 360 days before construction begins, and report to the Division of Water Rights its estimated annual withdrawal, discharge treatment plans, any discharge temperature adjustment and any planned water reuse. Operating facilities report annually by July 1, and the division publishes aggregated, anonymized data by September 1. The state engineer may fine a non-reporting operator up to $100 a day.

Carried by Representative Jill Koford, enacted in the 2026 general session and effective May 6, 2026. It supersedes the 2024 interim draft that used a 50,000 square foot trigger alone, enacts Utah Code 73-5-8.3, and adds a reporting failure to the state engineer enforcement powers in 73-2-25. Individual facility reports are protected records, so what the public sees is a state aggregate rather than a facility figure.

Utah Legislature

State

Virginia

Waterworks regulations

Enacted Effective Jan 1, 2027

Data center water sales reporting category

Waterworks operators must categorize monthly sales reporting data, breaking out usage by data centers holding state air permits separately from domestic, industrial and commercial, and other uncategorized purposes.

A regulation rather than a statute, and the first in the country to make data center water a distinct line in routine utility reporting. It reaches only facilities that already hold a state air permit, so smaller sites remain invisible.

VPM

State

California

AB 1577

Proposed 2026 session

Monthly energy and water reporting to the Energy Commission

Monthly reports to the State Energy Commission on energy and water consumption and effectiveness.

The successor vehicle after the AB 93 veto, moving the reporting duty from local water suppliers to a state agency.

MultiState

State

Georgia

SB 421

Proposed 2026 session

Ban on local nondisclosure agreements covering water use

Would prohibit local governments from signing nondisclosure agreements with data center operators that conceal energy and water usage information.

Attacks the mechanism rather than the metric. The American Water Works Association has reported that utilities are sometimes barred from releasing consumption data because of these agreements.

MultiState

State

Illinois

POWER Act

Proposed Feb 11, 2026

Water withdrawal and discharge disclosure with IEPA permitting

Would require data centers to disclose total water use including both the amount drawn in and the volume discharged, secure water permits from the Illinois EPA, and meet water efficiency requirements enforced by the agency.

One of the few proposals that asks for the discharge figure as well as the intake figure. The difference between the two is consumption, which is the quantity that actually matters and the one almost no jurisdiction currently collects.

Shaw Local News Network

State

Iowa

HF 2447

Proposed 2026 session

Quarterly water use reporting to Iowa DNR

Quarterly water usage reports submitted to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Quarterly cadence is more frequent than most state proposals, which default to annual.

MultiState

State

Michigan

SB 762

Proposed 2026 session

Annual utility reporting of data center water use

Annual reports to the Public Service Commission detailing total water used by each data center in a utility's service area.

Places the reporting duty on the utility rather than the operator, which routes around operator nondisclosure agreements.

MultiState

Federal

United States

S. 4784 §1632

Proposed Jul 27, 2026

National Defense Authorization Act for FY2027

Broadens the DOD roadmap water estimates to cover data centers supporting military operations and those still to be built or expanded, and raises the update frequency from triennial to annual.

Motion to proceed to consideration made in the Senate July 27, 2026. Amends the FY2026 provision enacted as P.L. 119-60 §1531.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 9825

Proposed Jul 22, 2026

Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act of 2026

Operators of data centers with peak demand of 25 MW or more would file an annual state report giving total water use and water source for each month, annual average PUE and WUE, and five-year projected water use with reduction proposals.

New or expanded facilities would report five-year projections before operation. Where a state lacks authority to collect the information, reporting runs to DOE and EPA instead. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 4213

Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act of 2026

Senate companion to H.R. 9825. Annual state reporting of monthly water use and source, average PUE and WUE, and five-year projections, for operators at 25 MW peak demand or above.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Names EPA, DOE and the Department of Agriculture as recipients of operator reports where state authority is absent.

GovTrack

Federal

United States

H.R. 6984

Proposed Jan 8, 2026

Data Center Transparency Act

EPA would report to Congress and publish, within six months of enactment and every three months after, the total water consumed by U.S. data centers, how much they reuse, and their effect on local water systems.

The local-effects reporting is unusually specific: potable water availability, whether the facility increased demand on local utilities, service disruptions for other customers, changes in residential water rates, and the type and amount of Clean Water Act pollutants discharged.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 3852

Proposed Feb 11, 2026

GRID Act

DOE would set requirements for data centers to publish estimated utility usage, and both operators and utilities would publicly disclose any transaction or agreement between them.

Defines “utility” to include public water systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act and treatment works under the Clean Water Act, which brings water contracts inside the disclosure duty. Aimed at the nondisclosure agreements that keep municipal water deals private.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 5054

Proposed Jul 21, 2026

Data Center Tax Accountability

Would exempt AI data centers from bonus depreciation and require operators to submit information on electricity and water use.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Finance. Ties the water reporting duty to a tax consequence rather than an environmental permit.

U.S. Congress

State

California

AB 93

Vetoed Oct 2025

Data center water use reporting to local suppliers

Would have required operators to report estimated water use to the local water supplier before applying for a business license, and to report actual use annually on license renewal.

Authored by Assemblymember Diane Papan. Passed both chambers and was vetoed by Governor Newsom, who objected that rigid reporting requirements could harm the industry.

E&E News

State

New Jersey

S4293

Vetoed 2026

Water and energy usage reporting to the Board of Public Utilities

Would have required operators to submit water and energy usage reports, including the source of the water, to the Board of Public Utilities.

Passed both chambers and was vetoed by Governor Murphy, who suggested anonymizing the data, extending the timeline and protecting proprietary information.

E&E News

Rules that specify the architecture rather than the volume, from San Angelo's fill cap and separate meter to South Carolina's proposed zero net withdrawal standard.

Local

Columbia County, Georgia

Google development covenant

Enacted Jul 25, 2026

Closed loop required, no wells, water supply protections

Google data centers at White Oak Technology Park between Appling and Harlem must operate as closed-loop systems that recycle cooling water rather than continuously drawing new water. The covenant also bars wells, sets decibel limits and lighting standards, requires minimal footprint and visibility, protects the local water supply, and requires an end-of-useful-life strategy.

Announced as a partnership between Columbia County, Google and Georgia Power, and described by the county as among the most restrictive data center covenants in the country. Google committed to cover 100% of the power costs associated with the development. A negotiated covenant is not an ordinance: it binds this developer at this site.

wrdw.com

State

Oklahoma

SB 259

Enacted Approved May 20, 2026

Groundwater Modernization Act

Data centers are barred from using groundwater in open-air evaporative cooling systems, or in any other system that consumes groundwater through evaporation without recirculation. To obtain a groundwater permit a data center must demonstrate low-consumptive cooling technology such as a closed loop or dielectric immersion system. Water permit holders file annual water use reports with the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, which is directed to write rules for reviewing those reports, investigating waste complaints and penalizing overuse.

Authored by Senator Brent Howard with Representative Carl Newton as principal House author, approved by the Governor on May 20, 2026 and effective November 1, 2026. Oklahoma pairs a cooling technology condition with a reporting duty in a single instrument, which is rarer than either alone. It matters here because the state's largest disclosed data center figures came from utility billing records rather than state permits: Oklahoma data centers have generally needed no state water permit at all.

okhouse.gov

Local

San Angelo, Texas

Data center water ordinance

Enacted Jun 16, 2026

Closed-loop mandate with a per-square-foot fill cap

Requires any data center to use a closed-loop cooling system, limits the initial water fill to no more than 8 gallons per square foot of gross building area, requires cooling water to be metered separately from other water use, and requires any approved or emergency exceedance to be reported in writing to the City Council within five business days.

The most precisely drafted local water ordinance located to date. It regulates the three things that actually determine outcomes: the architecture, the fill volume, and the meter. Most ordinances regulate only the first.

San Angelo LIVE

Local

Tucson, Arizona

Large-scale data center standards

Enacted Aug 6, 2026

No potable water for cooling, plus large-volume user compliance

Adopted 6-1. Applicants using Tucson Water must comply with the Large Quantity Water User Ordinance and demonstrate adequate water supply; applicants not covered by that ordinance may use no potable water for cooling. Council Member Schubert's amendments add one-year and two-year reviews of the ordinance.

Passed after the Council had already denied city water service to the Project Blue campus. Bobcat Tucson Water LLC subsequently applied for two commercial wells on Project Blue's behalf, approved under three existing legal groundwater rights agreements, which is how a municipal water denial gets routed around.

news.azpm.org

Local

Fort Worth, Texas

Data center zoning ordinance

Proposed Jul 8, 2026

Proposed closed-loop cooling requirement

Would require data centers to be equipped with closed-loop cooling systems that recycle water and reduce evaporative loss, as part of a first-of-its-kind zoning and development ordinance for the city.

The Zoning Commission voted 7-4 to deny the ordinance on July 8, 2026, sending it to the City Council without a favorable recommendation.

Fort Worth Report

State

Kansas

SB 400

Proposed 2026 session

Closed-loop cooling requirement with private right of action

Would require closed-loop cooling systems and allow municipalities and the attorney general to sue for violations.

The enforcement design is the notable part. Most disclosure bills create a filing duty with no obvious remedy; this one creates standing.

MultiState

State

Ohio

Data center cooling and tariff legislation

Proposed 2026 session

Cooling, rate-class and tariff requirements

Would impose new cooling requirements, a separate rate class, and tariff conditions on data centers.

Not a moratorium. Ohio is pursuing the utility-regulation route rather than the siting route, which reaches existing facilities as well as new ones.

bondbuyer.com

State

South Carolina

HB 4583

Proposed 2026 session

Zero net withdrawal closed-loop mandate

Would require closed-loop systems achieving zero net water withdrawal and net zero wastewater discharge, and prohibit extraction of groundwater and municipal water for cooling.

Gaining bipartisan co-sponsors. The strictest state-level architecture mandate introduced so far: it does not set a performance threshold, it removes the water source.

MultiState

Rules that decide where a facility may draw from, including per-square-foot caps, large-volume user ordinances and the interstate basin thresholds.

Local

Chandler, Arizona

2015 water-intensive business ordinance

Enacted 2015

115 gallons per day per 1,000 square feet

Restricts new water-intensive businesses from developing unless they align with the city's economic development plan, and limits data centers to 115 gallons per day per 1,000 square feet of space.

The first municipal data center water regulation in Arizona, and the oldest instrument in this tracker. It was written after the city discovered in 2013 how much water an existing data center was using, when the operator began requesting additional water connections.

Phoenix New Times

Local

Coweta County, Georgia

Data Center Ordinance

Enacted Dec 2025

Industrial zoning with utility capacity requirements

Permits data centers in light industrial and industrial districts subject to requirements on location, buffering, design standards, noise, lighting, traffic and utility capacity.

In January 2026 Atlas Development amended its application seeking a more intensive industrial classification, and residents filed an appeal to stop the project on protected rural land.

CBS News

Regional

Great Lakes Basin: IL, IN, MI, MN, NY, OH, PA, WI plus Ontario and Quebec

Great Lakes Compact, 2008

Enacted In force since 2008

Diversions outside the basin prohibited

Prohibits diversions of Great Lakes water outside the basin and requires that withdrawals within the basin be managed consistently with conservation and the long-term integrity of the resource.

Only one diversion application has ever been approved, for the City of Waukesha, Wisconsin. The eight Great Lakes states have become one of the country's data center epicenters, with more than 220 facilities still planned across the region, and the compact governs the water without governing the siting.

greatlakes.org

Local

Mesa, Avondale and Phoenix, Arizona

Large-volume water user ordinances

Enacted In force

Industrial usage caps with supplemental supply purchase

Water utilities for Mesa, Avondale and the City of Phoenix have each adopted ordinances capping usage for industrial facilities and requiring developers to purchase supplemental water supplies if they wish to exceed those caps.

A market mechanism rather than a prohibition: exceeding the cap is permitted, but the developer must bring new supply rather than draw down the existing one. Cataloged in the ASU Morrison Institute survey of Arizona large-volume water user ordinances.

ASU Morrison Institute

State

Michigan

Data center tax exemption law

Enacted In force

Municipal water capacity condition on tax breaks

Data centers receiving the state tax exemption may use municipal water only from a system with available capacity.

A capacity test rather than a volume cap, and it binds only facilities taking the tax break. Michigan sits inside the Great Lakes Compact, so a facility that self-sources faces the basin rules instead.

circleofblue.org

State

Ohio

Lake Erie watershed rule

Enacted In force

Consumptive-use permit above 1 million gallons per day

In the Lake Erie watershed, any facility proposing new or increased withdrawals above 1 million gallons per day must obtain a consumptive-use permit and demonstrate no significant adverse impact.

Pre-existing water law rather than a data center measure, but it is the binding constraint on large facilities in northern Ohio and it applies without any new legislation.

Control Associates

Local

Salt Lake City, Utah

Large water user ordinance

Enacted 2022

Industries above 200,000 gallons per day barred

Adopted an ordinance barring industries that use more than 200,000 gallons of water a day.

Predates the AI buildout and was not written for data centers, but it is one of the few municipal instruments that sets a hard daily volume ceiling rather than a review trigger.

grist.org

Local

Austin, Texas

Large-load data center resolution

Proposed Aug 26, 2026

Zoning and water requirements written before the first hyperscale site

A City Council resolution, set for debate and a vote on August 27, 2026, directs work on a definition for high-impact data centers and a review process that would require developers to seek additional city approval. Planning staff also recommend new requirements covering water use, noise, heat and lighting, and a statement in the city's economic development policy that Austin will not incentivize data center construction.

Austin has no land use classification for data centers, which leaves the city little authority over one that is proposed. Austin Energy serves 10 data centers drawing between 1 and 20 megawatts, and no hyperscale facility has been proposed inside city limits. Five council members are pursuing the package and one has said she would support a construction moratorium until the rules are settled. Sponsors cite the low response rate to the state water survey as the reason to legislate locally.

texastribune.org

Local

Colleton County, South Carolina

Gigawatt campus application

Proposed 2026

First proposed gigawatt campus in the state

An 860-acre, approximately $6 billion campus proposed for the Lowcountry would be South Carolina's first gigawatt-scale data center. Residents and elected officials packed a county civic center meeting to oppose it.

Tracked as a live siting decision. South Carolina is simultaneously considering HB 4583, which would require zero net water withdrawal statewide.

yahoo.com

Local

Festus, Missouri

Draft water-use limits

Proposed 2026

Water limits for any new industry, including data centers

A city council member is drafting ordinances that would set limits on water use for any new industry, including data centers.

Drafted after a data center vote in which four council members were subsequently voted out. Notable for regulating by water volume across all industry rather than singling out one sector, which is the objection the Data Center Coalition raises against sector-specific mandates.

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Local

Lopatcong Township, New Jersey

Planning Board recommendations

Proposed 2026

Data center rules referred to Town Council

The Planning Board referred a set of recommendations on data center rules to the Town Council for adoption.

Included as an example of the planning-board referral stage, where most local water conditions are first drafted.

TAPinto

Local

Newton County, Georgia

Unified Development Ordinance revision

Proposed 2026 draft

Technology Campus district covering water resources

Would create a Technology Campus zoning district for data centers, require a minimum of 300 acres in TC or heavy industrial M2 districts, and require a conditional-use permit in either classification. The broader ordinance revision covers zoning, development regulations and water resources.

Applies to unincorporated Newton County. Part of the wave of Georgia county ordinances adopted since late 2025.

The Covington News

State

Texas

Blanco-Pedernales GCD resolution

Proposed Apr 16, 2026

Groundwater district request for authority to deny data center permits

The Blanco-Pedernales Groundwater Conservation District passed a resolution urging the Texas Legislature to grant it the legal authority to deny water permits to data centers.

Groundwater conservation districts are the primary local groundwater regulators in Texas, and this one is saying its existing authority is not sufficient to refuse a large industrial permit.

The Texas Dispatch

Federal

United States

H.R. 9777

Proposed Jul 20, 2026

Protecting Ratepayers Act

Would bar any private entity from building, owning or operating a new or existing data center unless all of its water, including backup water, comes from an on-site source or some other source separate from the public water system.

The most restrictive water instrument introduced at any level of government. Against the CRS finding that public water systems supply an estimated 97% of U.S. data center water, this would require the sector to re-source essentially all of its supply.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 9497

Proposed Jul 2026

Water Resources Development Act of 2026

As ordered to be reported in July 2026, would amend U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water supply authority, which governs whether federal reservoir storage can be made available to users including data centers.

Federal reservoirs reach data centers mostly indirectly, through public water systems or communities holding agreements with the Corps or the Bureau of Reclamation.

U.S. Congress

State

Virginia

HB 1601

Vetoed 2025 session

Local authority over water resource impact assessments

Would have required assessment of noise impacts and authorized local governments to require water resource impact assessments for data center projects.

Sponsored by Delegate Josh Thomas. Passed the legislature and was vetoed by Governor Youngkin, who described it as creating unnecessary obstacles to data center development.

E&E News

Full or temporary halts, from New York's first-in-the-nation statewide moratorium to county pauses written to buy time for zoning.

Local

Imperial County, California

Data center development freeze

Enacted Jun 2026

Freeze running to June 2027 after a Colorado River water denial

The Board of Supervisors reversed an earlier project approval and adopted a 45-day freeze on data center development, later extended to roughly 10.5 months and running until June 2027.

The freeze followed the Imperial Irrigation District's May 1, 2026 denial of a complete water application filed on April 22 by Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing LLC. The developer petitioned the Superior Court against the district on June 5 and announced an intent to seek a restraining order against the freeze on June 23, with two hearings held in late July 2026. The cities of Imperial and El Centro had each withdrawn from recycled water agreements for the project in late 2025. It is the clearest case in the tracker of a water agency decision, not a zoning decision, stopping a project.

western-water.com

Local

Indianapolis and Marion County, Indiana

Construction bar through 2027

Enacted Aug 10, 2026

County-wide pause on new data center construction

The City-County Council voted 23-1 to bar new data center construction in Marion County through the end of 2027.

Statewide context: Indiana has 11 counties with data center ordinances, at least 17 with temporary moratoria, and two, Marshall and Cass, that have banned new data centers outright.

WFYI

State

New York

Executive Order

Enacted Jul 2026

First statewide moratorium on new hyperscale data centers

Bars construction of new hyperscale data centers drawing 50 MW or more, and directs a statewide environmental review that must examine energy use, water consumption, land use, pollution and impacts on disadvantaged communities.

The first statewide data center moratorium in the country. The enabling bill cleared the Senate 43-17 and the Assembly 103-38 on June 4, 2026. Water consumption is named in the review scope, which makes this the largest single water study ordered by any state.

governor.ny.gov

Local

Reno, Nevada

Application pause

Enacted May 2026

Temporary pause on new data center applications

The Reno City Council placed a temporary pause on new data center applications.

Adopted weeks before the Nye County water board sought its own moratorium, in a state where a large share of capacity sits in high or extremely high water stress areas.

nevadacurrent.com

Local

Apex, North Carolina

Proposed one-year moratorium

Proposed 2026

Moratorium following a withdrawn campus application

Moved toward a one-year moratorium on data centers after the proposed New Hill Digital Campus was withdrawn.

The pattern local governments are converging on: use a temporary pause to buy time to write zoning and water rules, rather than fight each application on its own terms.

wral.com

Local

North Mankato, Minnesota

Proposed moratorium

Proposed Jul 2026

Moratorium triggered by water volume

Would impose a moratorium on large data centers over 150,000 square feet or using more than 50,000 gallons of water daily, pending further public input and a council vote.

One of the few local pauses that names a water volume as the trigger rather than acreage, megawatts or zoning district alone.

WFYI

Local

Nye County, Nevada

Water District emergency order

Proposed May 27, 2026

Emergency order seeking a Pahrump Valley moratorium

The Nye County Water District Governing Board unanimously approved an emergency order requesting that the County Commission place a moratorium on data centers in the Pahrump Valley.

A water authority asking a land use authority to stop approvals. The split between who controls water and who controls zoning is the recurring structural problem in this tracker.

nevadacurrent.com

Federal

United States

H.R. 9442

Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

A moratorium on construction of new data centers until safeguarding legislation is enacted, with DOE filing quarterly reports on AI data center water usage, wastewater discharge and thermal outputs.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce and House Foreign Affairs. Senate companion is S. 4214.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 4214

Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

Senate companion to H.R. 9442. Construction moratorium pending safeguarding legislation, with quarterly DOE reporting on AI data center water usage, wastewater discharge and thermal output.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

U.S. Congress

State

Wisconsin

Draft moratorium package

Proposed 2026 session

Statewide moratorium conditioned on a protections package

Circulated draft legislation would prohibit data center operation until the legislature enacts a package of protections, including a statewide planning authority and explicit bans on shifting data center energy and water costs onto residential customers.

Four earlier bills regulating data centers failed before lawmakers ended the general business session for the year. The explicit ban on shifting water costs to households is unusual: most bills address electricity rates only.

bondbuyer.com

State

Maine

2026 moratorium bill

Vetoed Apr 2026

Statewide data center moratorium

Would have imposed a statewide moratorium on new data center construction.

Passed the legislature in April 2026 and was vetoed by Governor Janet Mills, who cited a proposed data center at a former paper mill site in a town that had struggled since the mill closed. Maine came closer than any state to the first statewide ban before New York enacted one.

yahoo.com

Rules that move the draw off the drinking water system without reducing the gallons.

State

Florida

CS/CS/SB 484

Enacted May 7, 2026

Florida Hyperscale Data Center Act

Requires data centers to use reclaimed water where it is environmentally, economically and technically feasible; creates a permitting framework to protect aquifers and local water supplies; classifies facilities at 50 MW peak demand or above as large-scale; and preserves local authority to deny projects or impose stricter standards.

Signed by Governor DeSantis on May 7, 2026, effective July 1, 2026. Also bars utilities from passing data center costs to residential and small-business ratepayers. The feasibility qualifier is the operative question: the statute does not say who decides what is feasible.

Florida Senate

Local

Memphis, Tennessee

Colossus Water Recycling Facility

Proposed 2026

Operator-funded greywater plant in place of aquifer withdrawal

An approximately $80 million wastewater recycling facility, a collaboration between xAI, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Nucor Steel, designed to process up to 13 million gallons of wastewater daily and to eliminate the need to draw from the Memphis Aquifer, with a stated goal of reducing aquifer strain by 9%.

Reported as awaiting permits and funding, with the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation stating it had not received a permit application for the facility and that preliminary schematics are not subject to its review. Included as a tracked commitment, not a completed mitigation.

Local 24 Memphis

State

Virginia

SB 417

Failed 2026 session

Treated wastewater condition on state grant funding

Would have conditioned state grant funding for data centers on the use of treated wastewater in cooling systems.

Did not pass before the crossover deadline; expected to be reconsidered in 2027.

MultiState

Credits, exemptions and grant conditions used to pull facilities toward reuse.

Federal

United States

H.R. 2940

Proposed Apr 17, 2025

Advancing Water Reuse Act

A 30% investment tax credit for qualifying water reuse projects, defined to include installing, replacing or modifying an on-site water recycling system within a data center.

Referred to House Ways and Means. The same 30% credit reappears in H.R. 6900 and in §201 of H.R. 9419.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 9419 §201

Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Power and Water for Families Act of 2026

A 30% investment credit for qualifying water reuse projects, extended to cover replacing freshwater such as groundwater with recycled municipal water, and building or expanding municipal recycling systems to secure that supply.

The broadest of the three water-reuse credit vehicles: it reaches the municipal recycling infrastructure, not only equipment inside the fence line. Also aims to protect existing ratepayers from incremental infrastructure costs attributable to large-load facilities.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 6900 §24001

Proposed Dec 18, 2025

American Cost-of-Living legislation (water reuse credit)

Authorizes a 30% tax credit for qualifying water reuse projects, including on-site water recycling systems within data centers.

Referred to House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce. Companion language to H.R. 2940.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 3737

Proposed Mar 17, 2026

GROW SMART Act

Amends the Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act of 1991 to fund voluntary water partnership agreements, and names data centers among the industrial and commercial entities eligible to be qualified applicants alongside irrigation districts.

Committee hearings held March 17, 2026 before Senate Energy and Natural Resources. Would put data centers and agricultural water users inside the same Bureau of Reclamation transaction framework rather than in competition for the same supply.

U.S. Congress

State

Virginia

SB 30 / HB 30

Proposed 2026 session

Budget amendments conditioning data center tax treatment

Would condition the data center tax credit on investments in environmental management. The House version would eliminate the sales tax exemption.

Budget vehicles rather than standalone environmental bills, which makes them harder to veto in isolation.

MultiState

Instruments that commission an answer rather than impose a rule.

Regional

Potomac River Basin: MD, VA, WV, PA, DC

ICPRB data center water analysis

Enacted 2026

Basin-scale assessment of data center demand

The Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin maintains an assessment of data center water use in the basin that supplies the Washington region.

Regional load forecasts underlying the work project a 35% increase for the Allegheny Power service area covering Maryland, West Virginia and Pennsylvania, and a 135% increase for Dominion's Virginia territory, with data centers named as the primary driver. The Commission held a joint public webinar on data centers with the Susquehanna and Delaware river basin commissions.

potomacriver.org

State

Virginia

Eastern Virginia groundwater study

Enacted Jul 28, 2026

State study urging authority to reject industrial withdrawal permits

The long-delayed state groundwater study found declines are likely in a critical eastern Virginia aquifer from population growth and industrial use, and recommended that regulators be given more authority to reject industrial water withdrawal permits, to require applicants to examine alternative water sources, and to act against users drawing more than they should.

Published in the largest data center market in the world. The recommendations are not yet law; they set the agenda for the next Virginia session.

VPM

State

Texas

2026 interim charges

Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Legislative review of data center water demand

House Speaker Burrows and Lieutenant Governor Patrick placed data center water demand in the 2026 interim charges for five legislative panels, including House Natural Resources and the Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs, to draft recommendations ahead of the 90th Legislature.

The Texas Water Development Board has acknowledged it has no way to track groundwater pumping by data centers in counties without a groundwater conservation district, which is the case in more than half of Texas counties.

KWTX

Federal

United States

H.R. 9372

Proposed Jun 25, 2026

Data Infrastructure Energy Measurement and Standards Act

NIST, with DOE, would run a measurement research program to develop best practices, definitions, methodologies and technical standards for measuring water use by data centers, including water use from AI training and inference.

Ordered to be reported in the nature of a substitute (amended) by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The furthest-advanced federal bill of the set, and the one that addresses the measurement gap directly rather than legislating around it.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 8033 §5

Proposed Mar 20, 2026

No Harm Data Centers Act

Directs EPA to seek an agreement with the National Academies to assess data center impacts on the environment and public health, including water consumption and water supply, and to recommend mitigations.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. Section 2 of H.R. 9629 carries the same National Academies assignment.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 9629 §2

Proposed Jul 9, 2026

Protecting Communities from Data Center Impacts Act of 2026

EPA would seek an agreement with the National Academies for an assessment of data center impacts on the environment and public health, including water consumption and water supply.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. Duplicates §5 of H.R. 8033 as a standalone vehicle.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 7858 §3

Proposed Mar 5, 2026

Data Center Community Impact Act

DOE, with EPA, Commerce, FERC and CEQ, would study data center effects on communities of color and low-income communities, including water consumed, effects on local supplies and drought-prone regions, and how cooling processes affect wastewater systems.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. The only federal bill in the set that pairs the water question with a distributional one.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

S. 3269 §2

Proposed Apr 15, 2026

Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2025

GAO technology assessment of liquid cooling for AI compute clusters, evaluating coolant options including water, water-glycol and engineered fluids, plus materials compatibility, corrosion control, biological growth mitigation, filtration and fluid management.

Referred to Senate Energy and Natural Resources. Section 3 of H.R. 5332 requires a similar but narrower GAO review.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 5332 §3

Proposed 2026

Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2026

GAO technology assessment focused on liquid cooling systems for AI compute clusters and high-performance computing facilities.

Referred to House Science, Space, and Technology and House Energy and Commerce. House counterpart to S. 3269.

U.S. Congress

Federal

United States

H.R. 5227

Proposed 2026

Unleashing Low-Cost Rural AI

A DOE study of the impact of artificial intelligence and data center site growth on U.S. energy supply resources.

Referred to House Science, Space, and Technology. Water enters through the energy-supply analysis rather than as a direct subject.

U.S. Congress

How a large water user is billed, and who absorbs the cost of new capacity.

State

Iowa

HF 2261

Failed 2026 session

Separate water customer class for large loads

Would have required water utilities serving facilities that need 20 MW of power or more to create a separate customer class with distinct rates.

Reported as unlikely to advance. Notable for defining a water customer class by electrical demand rather than water volume.

MultiState

The counterweight: instruments that insulate a data center permit from challenge.

State

Texas

Government Code 552.1331 (H.B. 872, 87th Legislature)

Enacted Effective Sep 1, 2021

Smart meter records exception used to withhold data center water use

Information a government-operated utility collects through an advanced metering system for usage, services and billing is excepted from disclosure under the Public Information Act. The utility must release the data to the customer it belongs to, and to nobody else.

Written to keep household smart meter readings away from payday lenders, not to cover industrial customers. San Antonio Water System invoked it in 2026 to deny a records request for three years of water use at 36 area data centers. The bill's author, Representative Diego Bernal, said the utility is not applying the law as he intended. This provision is the counterweight sitting underneath every Texas disclosure proposal on this page: a state can require reporting and still have the resulting numbers withheld.

ksat.com

Federal

United States

H.R. 8037

Proposed Mar 24, 2026

Protect American AI Act of 2026

A civil action over an environmental review under the Clean Water Act would not affect the validity of a permit issued for a data center. A court finding a violation would remand to the agency rather than vacate, and the agency would keep processing applications.

The counterweight to every disclosure bill in this table: it moves in the opposite direction, insulating data center water permits from judicial vacatur. Referred to House Energy and Commerce and House Judiciary.

U.S. Congress

Federal water regulation

Twenty-three bills, one law

Congress has generally deferred to state primacy over intrastate water allocation, which is why the binding rules in this subject are written in state capitols and city halls. That has not stopped Congress from filing bills. Twenty-three measures in the 119th Congress touch data center water, and exactly one has become law: a provision of the FY2026 defense authorization that requires the Defense Department to estimate water use for data centers on military installations. Everything else below sits in committee. The groups are ordered by what each would actually do.

Figure 4

MEASURES BY QUARTER2007–2024522025 Q112025 Q212025 Q342025 Q4332026 Q1162026 Q2142026 Q312027 Q1Five measures in eighteen years, then 63 in 2026.
Counted from this tracker’s own dataset, by the date each measure was introduced, adopted or vetoed. The forward-dated bar is Virginia’s waterworks reporting rule, which takes effect in January 2027.

One federal water provision has been enacted. It reaches data centers on military installations and nowhere else.

P.L. 119-60 §1531 Enacted Dec 18, 2025

National Defense Authorization Act for FY2026

Expands the Department of Defense High Performance Computing Roadmap to estimate the additional electricity and water usage, and the anticipated effects on surrounding communities, from data centers built or expanded on military installations.

The only federal data center water provision enacted to date. It reaches DOD installations only, and the estimates are not required if producing them would delay the roadmap's triennial update.

U.S. Congress

The largest group. Every one of these would require operators, utilities or agencies to publish water figures that are not collected today. None has passed.

S. 4784 §1632 Proposed Jul 27, 2026

National Defense Authorization Act for FY2027

Broadens the DOD roadmap water estimates to cover data centers supporting military operations and those still to be built or expanded, and raises the update frequency from triennial to annual.

Motion to proceed to consideration made in the Senate July 27, 2026. Amends the FY2026 provision enacted as P.L. 119-60 §1531.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 9825 Proposed Jul 22, 2026

Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act of 2026

Operators of data centers with peak demand of 25 MW or more would file an annual state report giving total water use and water source for each month, annual average PUE and WUE, and five-year projected water use with reduction proposals.

New or expanded facilities would report five-year projections before operation. Where a state lacks authority to collect the information, reporting runs to DOE and EPA instead. Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

U.S. Congress

S. 4213 Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Data Center Water and Energy Transparency Act of 2026

Senate companion to H.R. 9825. Annual state reporting of monthly water use and source, average PUE and WUE, and five-year projections, for operators at 25 MW peak demand or above.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. Names EPA, DOE and the Department of Agriculture as recipients of operator reports where state authority is absent.

GovTrack

H.R. 6984 Proposed Jan 8, 2026

Data Center Transparency Act

EPA would report to Congress and publish, within six months of enactment and every three months after, the total water consumed by U.S. data centers, how much they reuse, and their effect on local water systems.

The local-effects reporting is unusually specific: potable water availability, whether the facility increased demand on local utilities, service disruptions for other customers, changes in residential water rates, and the type and amount of Clean Water Act pollutants discharged.

U.S. Congress

S. 3852 Proposed Feb 11, 2026

GRID Act

DOE would set requirements for data centers to publish estimated utility usage, and both operators and utilities would publicly disclose any transaction or agreement between them.

Defines “utility” to include public water systems under the Safe Drinking Water Act and treatment works under the Clean Water Act, which brings water contracts inside the disclosure duty. Aimed at the nondisclosure agreements that keep municipal water deals private.

U.S. Congress

S. 5054 Proposed Jul 21, 2026

Data Center Tax Accountability

Would exempt AI data centers from bonus depreciation and require operators to submit information on electricity and water use.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Finance. Ties the water reporting duty to a tax consequence rather than an environmental permit.

U.S. Congress

Three separate vehicles carry the same 30% investment credit for on-site water recycling, and one extends it to the municipal recycling systems that supply it.

H.R. 2940 Proposed Apr 17, 2025

Advancing Water Reuse Act

A 30% investment tax credit for qualifying water reuse projects, defined to include installing, replacing or modifying an on-site water recycling system within a data center.

Referred to House Ways and Means. The same 30% credit reappears in H.R. 6900 and in §201 of H.R. 9419.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 9419 §201 Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Power and Water for Families Act of 2026

A 30% investment credit for qualifying water reuse projects, extended to cover replacing freshwater such as groundwater with recycled municipal water, and building or expanding municipal recycling systems to secure that supply.

The broadest of the three water-reuse credit vehicles: it reaches the municipal recycling infrastructure, not only equipment inside the fence line. Also aims to protect existing ratepayers from incremental infrastructure costs attributable to large-load facilities.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 6900 §24001 Proposed Dec 18, 2025

American Cost-of-Living legislation (water reuse credit)

Authorizes a 30% tax credit for qualifying water reuse projects, including on-site water recycling systems within data centers.

Referred to House Ways and Means and House Energy and Commerce. Companion language to H.R. 2940.

U.S. Congress

S. 3737 Proposed Mar 17, 2026

GROW SMART Act

Amends the Reclamation States Emergency Drought Relief Act of 1991 to fund voluntary water partnership agreements, and names data centers among the industrial and commercial entities eligible to be qualified applicants alongside irrigation districts.

Committee hearings held March 17, 2026 before Senate Energy and Natural Resources. Would put data centers and agricultural water users inside the same Bureau of Reclamation transaction framework rather than in competition for the same supply.

U.S. Congress

Two companion bills would halt new data center construction pending safeguards, with quarterly federal reporting on water use, wastewater discharge and thermal output.

H.R. 9442 Proposed Jun 24, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

A moratorium on construction of new data centers until safeguarding legislation is enacted, with DOE filing quarterly reports on AI data center water usage, wastewater discharge and thermal outputs.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce and House Foreign Affairs. Senate companion is S. 4214.

U.S. Congress

S. 4214 Proposed Mar 25, 2026

Artificial Intelligence Data Center Moratorium Act

Senate companion to H.R. 9442. Construction moratorium pending safeguarding legislation, with quarterly DOE reporting on AI data center water usage, wastewater discharge and thermal output.

Referred to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

U.S. Congress

Measurement bills. One would have NIST build the standards for measuring data center water at all, which is the gap underneath every other bill in this section.

H.R. 9372 Proposed Jun 25, 2026

Data Infrastructure Energy Measurement and Standards Act

NIST, with DOE, would run a measurement research program to develop best practices, definitions, methodologies and technical standards for measuring water use by data centers, including water use from AI training and inference.

Ordered to be reported in the nature of a substitute (amended) by the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The furthest-advanced federal bill of the set, and the one that addresses the measurement gap directly rather than legislating around it.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 8033 §5 Proposed Mar 20, 2026

No Harm Data Centers Act

Directs EPA to seek an agreement with the National Academies to assess data center impacts on the environment and public health, including water consumption and water supply, and to recommend mitigations.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. Section 2 of H.R. 9629 carries the same National Academies assignment.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 9629 §2 Proposed Jul 9, 2026

Protecting Communities from Data Center Impacts Act of 2026

EPA would seek an agreement with the National Academies for an assessment of data center impacts on the environment and public health, including water consumption and water supply.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. Duplicates §5 of H.R. 8033 as a standalone vehicle.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 7858 §3 Proposed Mar 5, 2026

Data Center Community Impact Act

DOE, with EPA, Commerce, FERC and CEQ, would study data center effects on communities of color and low-income communities, including water consumed, effects on local supplies and drought-prone regions, and how cooling processes affect wastewater systems.

Referred to House Energy and Commerce. The only federal bill in the set that pairs the water question with a distributional one.

U.S. Congress

S. 3269 §2 Proposed Apr 15, 2026

Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2025

GAO technology assessment of liquid cooling for AI compute clusters, evaluating coolant options including water, water-glycol and engineered fluids, plus materials compatibility, corrosion control, biological growth mitigation, filtration and fluid management.

Referred to Senate Energy and Natural Resources. Section 3 of H.R. 5332 requires a similar but narrower GAO review.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 5332 §3 Proposed 2026

Liquid Cooling for AI Act of 2026

GAO technology assessment focused on liquid cooling systems for AI compute clusters and high-performance computing facilities.

Referred to House Science, Space, and Technology and House Energy and Commerce. House counterpart to S. 3269.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 5227 Proposed 2026

Unleashing Low-Cost Rural AI

A DOE study of the impact of artificial intelligence and data center site growth on U.S. energy supply resources.

Referred to House Science, Space, and Technology. Water enters through the energy-supply analysis rather than as a direct subject.

U.S. Congress

The counterweight to everything above. It moves in the opposite direction, keeping a Clean Water Act challenge from voiding a data center permit.

H.R. 8037 Proposed Mar 24, 2026

Protect American AI Act of 2026

A civil action over an environmental review under the Clean Water Act would not affect the validity of a permit issued for a data center. A court finding a violation would remand to the agency rather than vacate, and the agency would keep processing applications.

The counterweight to every disclosure bill in this table: it moves in the opposite direction, insulating data center water permits from judicial vacatur. Referred to House Energy and Commerce and House Judiciary.

U.S. Congress

Instruments that alter where the water comes from rather than how it is reported, from barring public water system supply outright to opening federal reservoir storage.

H.R. 9777 Proposed Jul 20, 2026

Protecting Ratepayers Act

Would bar any private entity from building, owning or operating a new or existing data center unless all of its water, including backup water, comes from an on-site source or some other source separate from the public water system.

The most restrictive water instrument introduced at any level of government. Against the CRS finding that public water systems supply an estimated 97% of U.S. data center water, this would require the sector to re-source essentially all of its supply.

U.S. Congress

H.R. 9497 Proposed Jul 2026

Water Resources Development Act of 2026

As ordered to be reported in July 2026, would amend U.S. Army Corps of Engineers water supply authority, which governs whether federal reservoir storage can be made available to users including data centers.

Federal reservoirs reach data centers mostly indirectly, through public water systems or communities holding agreements with the Corps or the Bureau of Reclamation.

U.S. Congress

The ledger

Every water use, with the basis stated

Withdrawal, consumption and application are three different quantities. Most of the arguing in this subject comes from comparing one to another. Each row below states its basis and its year. Rows are comparable only within the same basis and the same scope, and the column does not sum.

U.S. data centers: direct cooling 17.4 billion gal
reference

Consumption 2023Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Up from 5.6 billion gallons in 2014. Direct use only: water consumed at the facility for thermal regulation, excluding off-site power generation and hardware manufacture.

U.S. data centers: indirect, at the power plant 211 billion gal
12× data center cooling

Consumption 2023Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Roughly twelve times the direct figure. This is water consumed generating the electricity the facilities run on, and it moves with the generation mix, not with the cooling system.

U.S. golf course irrigation ~531 billion gal
31× data center cooling

Applied 2024Golf Course Superintendents Association of America

Roughly 1.63 million acre-feet applied across U.S. golf facilities, about 1.5 billion gallons a day. Down about 31% since 2005, roughly two-thirds of the drop from more efficient irrigation, drought-tolerant grasses and smaller irrigated footprints.

California almonds 1.53–1.79 trillion gal
88× data center cooling

Applied 2024California Water Impact Network

Between 4.7 and 5.5 million acre-feet a year depending on water availability and bearing acreage. Other analyses using California Department of Water Resources crop data put almonds and pistachios together at about 2.1 million acre-feet, or roughly 9% of the state's agricultural water. The two figures rest on different methods and should not be reconciled by splitting the difference.

Total U.S. freshwater withdrawals ~322 billion gal/day
different basis and time unit

Withdrawal 2020U.S. Congress

The denominator. Withdrawal, not consumption: most of this volume is returned to its source. Data center direct consumption is estimated at approximately 2% of total U.S. water consumption.

Every state's own ledger sits in its file above.

Architecture

What actually changes the number

Every projection in this subject is a bet on cooling architecture. The Houston Advanced Research Center's 2030 range for Texas runs from 29 to 161 billion gallons, and the variable that decides where it lands is which of the systems below gets built.

Figure 2

100 GALLONS WITHDRAWNWATER USE EFFECTIVENESSOpen-loop evaporativethe industry baseline, and thearchitecture behind almost everyalarming projection75% evaporates to atmosphere25% returns to source1.8 L/kWhClosed-loop liquidfilled once, recirculated, heatrejected through dry coolersmakeup water onlynear zero in operationDry coolingheat rejected to air, at an energypenalty that rises with ambienttemperatureno water loopover 90% reduction
The same withdrawal produces wildly different consumption depending on how heat leaves the building. One operator’s air-cooled Texas facility used 10,000 gallons across all of 2024, while the same operator’s older Iowa facility used 1.3 billion gallons in the same year. This is why the Houston Advanced Research Center’s 2030 range for Texas runs from 29 to 161 billion gallons: the spread is a bet on which of these gets built.

Open-loop evaporative cooling

Legacy

Water use effectiveness~1.8 L/kWh

The industry-average baseline and the architecture behind almost every alarming projection. Between 70% and 80% of withdrawn water is lost to evaporation. A 100 MW facility on this architecture consumes on the order of 528,000 gallons a day.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Closed-loop liquid, direct-to-chip

Current build standard

Water use effectivenessnear zero in operation

A sealed circuit filled once and recirculated, with heat rejected through dry coolers rather than evaporation. Microsoft states that all of its data centers designed from August 2024 forward use closed-loop architecture, with first deployments in Phoenix and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, avoiding more than 125 million liters per year per facility. Oracle's 2026 AI facilities in New Mexico, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin use the same approach. The Abilene, Texas campus took roughly a one-million-gallon initial fill and then periodic maintenance top-ups.

Microsoft

Air cooling in a suitable climate

Proven

Water use effectivenesssite-dependent, can be negligible

The sharpest available illustration of how much architecture matters: one operator's air-cooled Texas facility used 10,000 gallons across all of 2024, while the same operator's older Iowa facility used 1.3 billion gallons in the same year. Five orders of magnitude, same company, same year.

SAVRN

Dry cooling

Proven

Water use effectivenessover 90% reduction

Rejects heat to air rather than to evaporation. Reduces water consumption by more than 90% against the evaporative baseline, at an energy penalty that rises with ambient temperature. Hybrid systems that switch between modes cut annual evaporative losses by up to 75%.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Reclaimed and recycled municipal water

Policy favorite

Water use effectivenessshifts the source, not the volume

Uses treated wastewater effluent rather than potable supply. It does not reduce the gallons; it removes them from the drinking water system. This is the mechanism Florida's SB 484 requires where feasible, that Virginia's failed SB 417 would have funded, and that three separate federal bills would subsidize with a 30% investment credit.

Florida Senate

Single-phase immersion

Emerging

Water use effectivenessclosed circuit

Roughly 47% of the installed liquid-cooling base. Supports very high rack densities. Deployed mainly in cryptocurrency mining, specialized HPC clusters, edge AI and pilot hyperscale installations.

SAVRN

Two-phase immersion

Supply-constrained

Water use effectivenessclosed circuit

3M discontinued production of the principal fluid in 2025 citing PFAS concerns. Remaining alternatives run $500 to $1,000 per gallon, and NVIDIA has not endorsed the approach for Blackwell-generation GPUs, citing long-term reliability and component warranty. Published as a constraint, not a solution.

SAVRN

Figure 3

LITERS OF WATER PER KILOWATT-HOUR00.511.520.19–0.27REPORTED HYPERSCALER FLEETSAWS 0.19 · Google 0.20 · Meta 0.20 · Microsoft 0.271.8Industry average baselineMicrosoft, early 2000s: 2.3roughly 10x
Water use effectiveness measures the building only. It excludes the power plant, which consumes roughly twelve times more, so a low score here is necessary and not sufficient. Every projection built on 1.8 prices an architecture the industry is already leaving.

Reported water use effectiveness, liters per kilowatt-hour

Industry average baseline 1.8L/kWh Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and DOE FEMP benchmark.
AWS global fleet 0.19L/kWh Roughly one-tenth of the industry baseline.
Google 0.20L/kWh About nine times better than the baseline.
Meta, recent buildings 0.20L/kWh Recent construction only; older estate differs.

Who is publishing

The organizations, and what each one is asking for

Data center water is now an organized field. Advocacy groups, industry associations, research institutes, water utilities and interstate agencies are all publishing on it, and their numbers do not agree. This section lists who is publishing, what their headline water claim is, and what they are asking for. The stance label is descriptive, not a judgment. A claim from an advocacy organization is not wrong because it comes from an advocacy organization, and a claim from industry is not right because it comes with a methodology.

Food & Water Watch

Opposition

The Urgent Case Against Data Centers, March 2026

Headline claim

By 2028 U.S. data centers could use as much as 720 billion gallons of water a year just to cool AI servers, equal to the indoor needs of 18.5 million American households. Water consumed by data centers more than tripled from 2014 to 2023.

Asking for

An immediate moratorium on data centers at federal, state and local levels; a regulatory framework for data centers and for AI; a stop to any preemption of local control; and an end to all federal, state and local subsidies for AI data centers.

The most detailed and most heavily cited case for a halt. It organized the July 2026 letter from more than 100 groups asking Governor Hochul to sign New York's moratorium.

foodandwaterwatch.org

Greenpeace USA

Opposition

Campaign against AI infrastructure buildout, 2025 to 2026

Headline claim

17.4 billion gallons of water were used to cool U.S. data centers, enough to fill more than 26,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Greenpeace Germany's 2025 analysis warns AI data center electricity demand could be eleven times higher in 2030 than in 2023 without government intervention.

Asking for

Government intervention on AI energy and water demand, and an end to ratepayer subsidy of the buildout.

Uses the same 17.4 billion gallon LBNL figure that industry cites, which makes it one of the few numbers both sides accept. Ran a billboard truck at NVIDIA's GTC conference in March 2026.

greenpeace.org

Sierra Club

Opposition

Data Centers: Local Government Resources

Headline claim

Maintains a resource hub directing local governments on how to evaluate and condition data center proposals.

Asking for

Local conditions on approval, and signatory to the coalition letter supporting New York's moratorium.

The Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter and the national organization both appear among signatories to the multi-group moratorium letters.

sierraclub.org

Data Center Watch

Research

Q1 2026 report

Headline claim

At least 75 data center projects worth about $130 billion were blocked or delayed nationwide from January through March 2026, the most in any three-month period since tracking began in 2023, and equal to the whole of 2025. Active opposition groups more than doubled to 833 across 49 states. Statewide moratorium proposals were introduced in 14 states in the quarter, and more than 300 state-level data center bills were filed in the first six weeks of 2026.

Asking for

None. Tracks and quantifies opposition rather than advocating.

Water is one of four named concern categories, alongside energy, land use and ratepayer impact. Project-level detail sits behind a paid tier, so the public figures cannot be independently recomputed.

datacenterwatch.org

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Crowdsourced

Community reporting map, launched late May 2026

Headline claim

More than 9,200 community reports across 50 states, 116 active local moratoria counted as of June 2026, and more than $286 billion of investment recorded as blocked by community opposition since 2025.

Asking for

Community reporting, local organizing, and legislative transparency.

Self-reported and unverified by design. A report records that a resident is concerned, not that a facility exists or uses the water attributed to it. Snopes confirmed the project is authentic; individual entries are not audited.

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Industry-aligned

The Data Center Water Problem Is Soluble, July 6, 2026

Headline claim

Direct data center water consumption was 17.4 billion gallons in 2023, less than 1% of total U.S. water consumption, against 211 billion gallons consumed indirectly at power plants, roughly twelve times the direct figure. Indirect intensity varies by generation mix, from about 2.1 gallons per kilowatt-hour in the hydropower-heavy Pacific Northwest to about 0.13 in solar-heavy California.

Asking for

State-led governance rather than federal mandates: mandatory standardized disclosure above 1 MW, watershed-based review with performance standards rather than technology mandates, joint water and energy review, and a federal role limited to funding metrics, procurement and research. Explicitly rejects national water mandates and federal preemption of state water law.

The most complete policy architecture published by any party. Also notes that over 200 state data center bills were introduced in 2025 with more than 40 enacted, and that over $130 billion in projects were delayed or abandoned in Q1 2026.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

American Water Works Association

Water utilities

Cooling the Cloud: Water Utilities in a Data Driven World, October 28, 2025

Headline claim

Direct data center water use is approximately 2% of total U.S. water consumption. Utilities are sometimes barred from releasing consumption data because of nondisclosure agreements with operators.

Asking for

Better data and clearer contractual terms between utilities and operators.

The source the Congressional Research Service relies on for the 2% figure. The nondisclosure finding is the evidentiary basis for Georgia SB 421 and the disclosure bills generally.

awwa.org

Congressional Research Service

Nonpartisan agency

Data Centers and Water: Frequently Asked Questions, R49057, July 31, 2026

Headline claim

Public water systems supply an estimated 97% of the water provided to U.S. data centers. Congress has generally deferred to state primacy in intrastate water allocation, so state law largely governs access to freshwater. Federal hooks are Clean Water Act permits for wastewater, stormwater and dredge or fill discharges.

Asking for

None. Written for Members of Congress, not for advocacy.

The single most useful document in this subject and the source of the federal bill inventory in this tracker. Coordinated by Peter Folger and Elena H. Humphreys with five other CRS specialists.

U.S. Congress

Circle of Blue

Journalism and research

Great Lakes States Face a Data Center Governance Gap, 2026

Headline claim

More than 220 data center facilities are still planned across the Great Lakes basin, and the eight Great Lakes states have become one of the country's data center epicenters, while no state in the region can say precisely how much water the facilities take.

Asking for

Closing the measurement gap at state level.

Also published playbooks for residents and legislators, and reporting on the first data center-only utility in the United States.

circleofblue.org

Alliance for the Great Lakes

Regional advocacy

A Finite Resource: Managing the Growing Water Needs, August 2025

Headline claim

Growing demand from data centers and industry could stress Great Lakes water, and the most immediate problem is that no one knows exactly how much water the facilities take.

Asking for

Basin-wide accounting of large industrial withdrawals.

Frames the Great Lakes Compact as governing diversion out of the basin while leaving in-basin industrial demand comparatively lightly tracked.

greatlakes.org

Environmental Law Institute

Legal research

Data Centers and Water Fact Sheet, January 2026

Headline claim

Published a fact sheet on the legal and regulatory frameworks governing data center water.

Asking for

None stated.

Listed because it is a primary legal reference in this field. The document returned an access error to automated retrieval and has not yet been read into this tracker.

eli.org

MultiState

Policy tracking

State Data Center Water Usage Legislation Gains Momentum, March 3, 2026

Headline claim

Tracks state data center water bills across California, Iowa, Michigan, South Carolina, Kansas, Virginia and Georgia, and reports that more than 60 bills addressing data center water use were introduced across 2025 and 2026.

Asking for

None. Commercial legislative tracking.

The most reliable running index of state bill numbers and status, and the backbone of the state layer in this tracker.

MultiState

Susquehanna River Basin Commission

Interstate agency

Data Centers & Water Use regulatory page

Headline claim

Only one hyperscale data center permit had been issued in the basin as of early 2026. Developers increasingly source from existing public water supplies, which avoids a withdrawal approval because the volume already sits under the public supplier's approval.

Asking for

None. Regulates withdrawal and consumptive use across New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

One of the few agencies anywhere publishing plainly about the loophole in its own regime.

srbc.gov

Data Center Coalition

Industry association

State policy testimony, 2025 to 2026

Headline claim

Reporting requirements aimed at one industry risk penalizing that industry unfairly relative to other large water users.

Asking for

Against sector-specific water reporting mandates.

Represented in state hearings by Dan Diorio, Vice President for State Policy. The strongest version of this argument is that a water rule keyed to volume rather than to sector would be harder to game and harder to challenge.

E&E News

Operators

What the companies have published

Every large operator has now published a water position, and all four of the biggest have pledged to be water positive by 2030. Water positive is a replenishment accounting claim, not a consumption claim: it means funding projects that return water to watersheds, which may not be the watersheds the facilities draw from. Both figures are given below where published, because a company can be water positive on paper and still be the largest single draw on a specific local system.

Microsoft Pledge Water positive by 2030 NASDAQ:MSFT

What the company claims

States it achieved water positivity across operations in FY2025, five years early, replenishing more water than it withdrew globally.

What is measured

Fleet WUE reduced from 2.3 to 0.27 liters per kilowatt-hour across its owned fleet in 2025, a near-90% improvement since the early 2000s. All data centers designed from August 2024 forward use closed-loop cooling, with first deployments in Phoenix and Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, avoiding more than 125 million liters per year per facility.

esgdive.com

Amazon Web Services Pledge Water positive by 2030 · Amazon.com, Inc. NASDAQ:AMZN

What the company claims

About 75% of the way to the goal, with more than 50 replenishment projects returning more than 5.8 billion gallons annually.

What is measured

Data centers withdrew 2.5 billion gallons of water in 2025. Fleet WUE of 0.19 liters per kilowatt-hour. Cut water consumption in Northern Virginia, its largest data center region, by 42% in the past year.

trellis.net

Google Pledge Water positive by 2030 · Alphabet Inc. NASDAQ:GOOGL

What the company claims

More than 165 projects underway that will replenish more than 19 billion gallons of water annually by 2030.

What is measured

Fleet WUE of 0.20 liters per kilowatt-hour. One air-cooled Texas facility used 10,000 gallons across all of 2024 while an older Iowa facility used 1.3 billion gallons in the same year. As of 2024, 21% of water used in Google data centers was discharged, with the remainder lost to evaporation or sent to sewer.

Google

Meta Pledge Water positive by 2030 · Meta Platforms, Inc. NASDAQ:META

What the company claims

Water positive commitment across operations.

What is measured

Recent buildings report WUE of 0.20 liters per kilowatt-hour. The Newton County, Georgia facility is reported to consume about 500,000 gallons per day, roughly 10% of that county's total water use.

Meta

Oracle Pledge Closed-loop design standard NYSE:ORCL

What the company claims

New AI data centers in New Mexico, Michigan, Texas and Wisconsin use direct-to-chip closed-loop non-evaporative cooling.

What is measured

The Abilene, Texas campus took roughly a one-million-gallon initial fill followed by periodic maintenance top-ups. Two of eight buildings were operational in early 2026.

SAVRN

xAI Pledge Aquifer offset via recycling · Wholly owned by SpaceX since February 2026 PRIVATE

What the company claims

The Colossus Water Recycling Facility, an approximately $80 million plant with xAI, the Tennessee Valley Authority and Nucor Steel, would process up to 13 million gallons of wastewater daily and eliminate the need to draw from the Memphis Aquifer, with a stated goal of reducing aquifer strain by 9%.

What is measured

Reported as awaiting permits and funding. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation stated it had not received a permit application for the facility. Recorded as a commitment, not a completed mitigation. Ownership note: SpaceX acquired xAI in an all-stock transaction that closed in February 2026, making it a wholly owned subsidiary. SpaceX is itself privately held, so neither entity carries a public listing.

Local 24 Memphis

Citizen signal

What communities are reporting

Crowdsourced platforms are now the largest single record of local objection to data center development, and they are the reason many of the ordinances above exist. They are also self-reported and unverified by design. Everything in this section is recorded as reported by the platform, with the platform named. None of it is treated as a measured quantity, and none of it is mixed into the ledger above.

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting

Launched Late May 2026

Reported by the platform

9,200+community reports submitted, spanning 50 states
116active local moratoria counted by the platform as of June 2026
19%of reports citing secrecy: nondisclosure agreements, closed meetings, undisclosed terms
$286B+of investment the platform records as blocked by community opposition since 2025

Just over 3,000 reports by June 2, more than 5,000 by June 10, and 8,200 within weeks of launch. Water use for cooling ranks among the most commonly reported concerns, alongside electricity consumption, noise, strain on local infrastructure and electronic waste. The platform names Florida SB 484 and South Dakota SB 135 among tracked water measures, and logs a Mercer County petition over a proposed facility's projected 110 million gallons per year.

How to read this Self-reported and unverified. A report records that a resident is concerned about a facility, not that the facility exists, is permitted, or uses the water attributed to it. Authenticity of the project itself has been confirmed by Snopes; the individual entries have not been independently audited.

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting Snopes

“Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.”

Environmental and Energy Study Institute, widely circulated in coverage of the Brockovich map

This describes the upper bound of a large evaporatively cooled facility, not a typical one. Utility metering in Fairfax and Prince William Counties, Virginia, the densest data center market in the United States, reports average daily use of roughly 18,000 to 38,000 gallons per building with peak days approaching 88,000. The gap between the two figures is roughly two orders of magnitude, and it is entirely explained by cooling architecture and facility scale.

Center for Secure Water, University of Illinois

“A 100 MW data center consumes about as much water per day as 2,600 households.”

International Energy Agency, Energy and AI, April 2025

Direct consumption only, averaged across cooling strategies. The IEA splits total data center water use 60% indirect at power plants and 40% direct, so the combined figure is equivalent to about 6,500 households. This is the cleanest household-scale comparison available because it states its basis.

International Energy Agency

“U.S. data centers consume nearly 450 million gallons of water daily and more than 160 billion gallons annually.”

Circulated in coverage of the Brockovich map

This figure sits far above Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's measured 17.4 billion gallons of direct consumption for 2023, and far below the 211 billion gallons LBNL attributes to indirect consumption at power plants. It appears to be a partial blend of the two. When a water number for data centers is quoted without saying whether it is direct or indirect, withdrawal or consumption, it cannot be checked and should not be used.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Claim checks

11 circulating claims, checked

Each claim below is stated as its author states it, attributed, and set against what it can be reconciled with. A check is not a rebuttal. Three of these claims hold exactly, and one of them comes from the report calling for a national moratorium.

Conflicts Conflicts with the federal projection

“By 2028, U.S. data centers could use as many as 720 billion gallons of water a year just to cool AI servers, equal to the indoor needs of 18.5 million households.”

Food & Water Watch, The Urgent Case Against Data Centers, March 2026

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory projects annual direct consumption rising to between 38 and 73 billion gallons by 2028. The 720 billion gallon figure is roughly ten times LBNL's high case for direct cooling. It is close in magnitude to a combined direct-plus-indirect total, which would include water consumed at power plants rather than at the servers. Stated as cooling alone, it cannot be reconciled with the federal projection.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Confirmed Confirmed

“Water consumed by data centers more than tripled from 2014 to 2023.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reports direct consumption of 5.6 billion gallons in 2014 and approximately 17.4 billion gallons in 2023, a factor of 3.1. The claim holds exactly, and it is drawn from the same federal dataset the industry cites.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Unresolved Unresolved

“Closed-loop systems that 'consume zero water' are clever advertising. It is not uncommon for them to lose 25% of their water volume per month.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026

This is the sharpest technical dispute in the subject and it is not settled by any source located here. A 25% monthly loss on a one-million-gallon fill would be roughly three million gallons a year, which is a different facility from the one implied by 'filled once and recirculated.' Operators publish fleet WUE figures rather than makeup-water volumes, and makeup water is exactly the quantity that would resolve it. San Angelo's ordinance is the only instrument located that would produce the answer, because it caps the fill and requires a separate meter and written notice of any exceedance.

foodandwaterwatch.org

Depends Depends on the grid

“Electricity generation accounts for around 71% of a data center's water footprint.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026

Three credible figures exist and they are all defensible because they measure different fleets on different grids. The International Energy Agency splits total data center water 60% indirect and 40% direct. Food & Water Watch says about 71% indirect. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's 17.4 billion direct against 211 billion indirect implies about 92%. The spread is real: indirect intensity runs from about 2.1 gallons per kilowatt-hour in the Pacific Northwest to about 0.13 in California. The share is a property of the grid a facility sits on, not a constant.

International Energy Agency

Confirmed Confirmed

“A federal report estimated that in 2023, through power generation alone, U.S. data centers indirectly consumed over 200 billion gallons of water.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026

Matches the 211 billion gallon indirect figure attributed to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Advocacy and industry sources agree on this number, and it is the largest single quantity in the subject.

Information Technology and Innovation Foundation

Depends Depends on the definition

“Around two-thirds of U.S. data centers built since 2022 are in water-stressed regions.”

Food & Water Watch, March 2026, and a parallel Guardian analysis finding roughly two-thirds of planned facilities in areas that saw drought in the past year

A separate framing puts almost a third of U.S. data centers in areas of high or extremely high water stress, covering parts of Utah, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and California. The two-thirds and one-third figures are not contradictory: one counts recent drought exposure, the other counts a standing water stress classification. Neither is meaningful without naming which index and which threshold, and most citations of both omit that.

grist.org

Depends Upper bound, not typical

“Large data centers can consume up to 5 million gallons of water per day, equivalent to a town of 10,000 to 50,000 people.”

Environmental and Energy Study Institute, widely circulated in coverage of the Brockovich map

This is the ceiling for a large evaporatively cooled facility, not a typical figure. Utility metering in Fairfax and Prince William Counties, Virginia, the densest data center market in the country, reports average daily use of roughly 18,000 to 38,000 gallons per building with peak days approaching 88,000. The gap is about two orders of magnitude and it is explained by cooling architecture and facility scale.

Center for Secure Water, University of Illinois

Confirmed Sound, and states its basis

“A 100 MW data center consumes about as much water per day as 2,600 households.”

International Energy Agency, Energy and AI, April 2025

Direct consumption only, averaged across cooling strategies. The IEA splits total use 60% indirect and 40% direct, so the combined figure is about 6,500 households. This is the cleanest household-scale comparison available precisely because it says which boundary it is drawing.

International Energy Agency

Conflicts Reconciles with neither figure

“U.S. data centers consume nearly 450 million gallons of water daily and more than 160 billion gallons annually.”

Circulated in coverage of the Brockovich map

This sits far above Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's measured 17.4 billion gallons of direct consumption for 2023 and far below the 211 billion gallons attributed to indirect consumption. It appears to be a partial blend of the two. A water number quoted without saying whether it is direct or indirect, withdrawal or consumption, cannot be checked and should not be used.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Depends The volume is not the mechanism

“Meta's Newton County, Georgia facility consumes about 500,000 gallons per day, roughly 10% of the county's total water use, and county water rates will rise 33% from 2025 to 2027.”

Reported across national and local coverage of the Newton County case

The reported harm in Newton County is dry residential wells, sediment and damaged appliances, which is a groundwater and construction-impact story rather than a cooling-consumption story. Both can be true at once, and the distinction matters for policy: a closed-loop cooling mandate, the most common remedy in this tracker, would not have prevented what residents reported. The county's projected 2030 water deficit and the rate increase are the durable findings.

pressdemocrat.com

Depends A replenishment claim, not a consumption claim

“Microsoft has achieved water positivity across its data center operations, five years ahead of its 2030 goal.”

Microsoft, FY2025 reporting

Water positive means funding projects that return more water to watersheds than the company withdrew globally. It is an accounting position across a portfolio, and the replenishment need not occur in the basins the facilities draw from. The consumption figure and the replenishment figure are different quantities and both should be read. The measured claim alongside it, fleet WUE falling from 2.3 to 0.27 liters per kilowatt-hour, is the one that describes the facilities.

datacenterdynamics.com

The weekly refresh

20 sources on a schedule

Nobody can hand-check three thousand counties every week. What is maintainable is a registry of the places that report county and city activity, polled on a schedule, diffed against the last run, with anything new surfaced as a lead. A lead is not a fact. Nothing reaches the table above without a primary source establishing what the instrument requires.

Sources that refuse automated requests are not worked around. They run through an official API where one exists, and onto a dated manual checklist where one does not.

Federal

Congress.gov API, data center water bills New bills and status changes in the 119th Congress. Federal layer of the tracker. The public congress.gov site refuses automated requests; the official API is the supported path and the key is free from api.data.gov.
Weekly Official API
Congressional Research Service, R49057 revisions Reissues of the federal bill inventory. The compilation this tracker's federal layer is built on. Fetch the PDF and extract Table A-1; the HTML product page refuses automated requests.
Monthly Manual check
USGS Water Data APIs Machine-readable national water data. The denominator layer.
Continuous Polled
USGS county-level water use compilation (state ledger spine) The 2015 county-level release that every state ledger on this page is built from. Watch for the completed 2020 compilation: USGS has released it in phases and it does not yet cover all categories, so it cannot replace 2015 until it does.
Annual Polled
USGS Water Use Data for the Nation County and state withdrawal and consumptive use, compiled on five-year circular cycles.
Annual Polled
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory data center energy and water reporting The direct and indirect consumption anchors: 17.4B gallons direct, 211B indirect, 38 to 73B projected for 2028. Any revision changes the hero figure and several claim checks.
Annual Manual check
Federal Register, river basin commission actions SRBC and DRBC docket actions, including data center withdrawal and consumptive use approvals.
Weekly Polled

Regional

Susquehanna River Basin Commission, data centers Data center dockets across NY, PA and MD, plus hearing and commission action dates.
Monthly Polled
Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin Basin-scale demand assessment for MD, VA, WV, PA and DC.
Quarterly Polled
Alliance for the Great Lakes water use reporting Great Lakes basin industrial withdrawal analysis across the eight compact states.
Quarterly Manual check

State

MultiState data center policy tracking State bill numbers and status across all fifty states. Backbone of the state layer.
Weekly Polled
LegiScan API, state bill text and status Full bill text and status for state measures across all fifty states, machine-readable. The public site refuses automated requests; the API is the supported path.
Weekly Official API
Virginia waterworks monthly sales reporting From January 2027, the first routine utility reporting anywhere that breaks out data center water as its own category.
Monthly Polled

Local

Brockovich AI Data Center Reporting Community reports and tracked local measures across 50 states. Leads, not facts. Every lead requires a primary source before it enters the tracker.
Weekly Polled
Data Center Watch quarterly reports Blocked and delayed project counts, opposition group counts, and state moratorium proposal counts.
Quarterly Polled
Food & Water Watch data center campaign Coalition letters, state campaign launches, and the running case for a moratorium.
Weekly Polled
Sierra Club local government data center resources Model conditions and local government guidance as it is published.
Monthly Polled
Circle of Blue, Great Lakes and water-energy desk Reported state and local water governance developments, strongest in the Great Lakes states.
Weekly Polled

Operator

Hyperscaler sustainability reporting Fleet WUE, withdrawal volumes and replenishment claims from Microsoft, AWS, Google and Meta. Per-facility disclosure is the metric to watch for.
Annual Polled
Greenpeace USA data center campaign Campaign actions and published analysis on AI infrastructure water and energy.
Weekly Polled

Forward

Six levers that would settle this

01

Report consumption, not withdrawal

Almost every disclosure bill in this tracker asks for the intake figure. Illinois asks for intake and discharge, and the difference between those two numbers is the only one that describes what the facility actually took. A reporting regime built on withdrawal produces a large number that means nothing.

State legislatures drafting disclosure bills

02

Standardize the metric before mandating the report

Water use effectiveness is defined as facility water consumption divided by IT electricity demand, which excludes the indirect consumption that is twelve times larger. H.R. 9372 would have NIST develop the measurement standards. Every state mandate written before that standard exists will collect numbers that cannot be compared across jurisdictions.

NIST, DOE, state agencies

03

Condition approvals on architecture, not on promises

San Angelo requires a closed loop, caps the initial fill at 8 gallons per square foot, requires a separate meter, and requires written notice of any exceedance within five business days. That is an enforceable specification. An ordinance that requires a facility to be water-efficient without defining the term is not.

City councils and county commissions

04

Separate the source question from the volume question

Reclaimed and recycled water does not reduce consumption; it moves the draw off the drinking water system. Both matter, and conflating them lets a facility claim a water reduction it has not made. Florida's statute requires reclaimed water where feasible without defining who determines feasibility.

Permitting authorities

05

Follow the water to the power plant

Indirect consumption is roughly twelve times direct consumption, and it varies enormously by generation mix: about 2.1 gallons per kilowatt-hour in the hydropower-heavy Pacific Northwest against about 0.13 in solar-heavy California. A facility can hold a near-zero WUE and still carry a large water footprint through its power purchase.

State energy offices, utility commissions and water authorities jointly

06

Close the counties with no meter at all

The Texas Water Development Board has stated it cannot track groundwater pumping by data centers in counties without a groundwater conservation district, which covers more than half of Texas counties. Louisiana registers groundwater use only above 50,000 gallons a day. No disclosure statute reaches a withdrawal nobody is required to measure.

State water agencies and groundwater districts

Method

How this file is built

Inclusion

  • An entry is included when a primary or named secondary source establishes that the instrument exists and states what it requires. Entries without a source are dropped, not softened.
  • Federal entries are compiled from Congressional Research Service report R49057, Data Centers and Water: Frequently Asked Questions, July 31, 2026, current as of July 30, 2026.
  • Crowdsourced platform counts are recorded as reported by the platform and attributed. They are never treated as measured quantities and never enter the ledger.

Units

  • Consumption means water withdrawn and permanently removed from its source. Withdrawal means water taken, most of which is often returned. Application means irrigation delivered. Each ledger row carries its basis.
  • Water use effectiveness is facility water consumption divided by IT electricity demand. It measures the building only. It does not include the water consumed generating the electricity, which is roughly twelve times larger.

Refresh

  • A registry of 20 sources is polled on each source's own cadence. Content is fingerprinted with markup and volatile page furniture stripped out, so a rotating session token or a rendered timestamp does not fake a change every week.
  • A source that changed produces a lead, not an entry. Every lead needs a primary source establishing what the instrument requires before it reaches the table.
  • A measure added this week counts as new only when the measure's own date falls in the current month. Everything else publishes as newly located from an earlier period. Conflating a backfill with this week's news destroys the changelog the first time somebody checks a date.
  • The dataset merges and never replaces. A run that would shrink the measure count below the recorded floor aborts instead of publishing.
  • Corrections are published rather than quietly edited. The 49 billion gallon revision at the top of this page is the reason.

Sources

84 primary sources

Every citation on this page, in one place, across 62 organizations.