Piedmont Water Woes Collide With Data Center Fight

Piedmont, Oklahoma is grappling with an aging water infrastructure system, experiencing frequent drops in water pressure and brief outages, according to residents and city officials. The city plans a multi-million dollar overhaul of its water network, including a secondary connection to Oklahoma City and new storage, but much of this work is still in early design stages. This precarious water situation has ignited a debate at City Hall over a proposed data center, which requires a rezoning request. Residents are strongly opposing the data center project, citing fears that its significant water demands, estimated at 7,500 to 10,000 gallons of water per day for cooling and other uses, would overwhelm the fragile system. Chelsea Bingham, a resident, expressed concerns that adding a data center would "absolutely decimate what little water pressure we already have." State lawmakers, including Sen. Kristen Thompson, acknowledge the city's outdated infrastructure and its struggle to keep pace with growth. The city's planning and zoning commission is scheduled to hold a Monday session on the rezoning request. Residents are demanding clear timelines and firm guarantees on water capacity improvements before any new industrial users are permitted to connect to the system, despite state loans and grants already approved for infrastructure upgrades. The upcoming meeting will determine if officials will require demonstrable capacity improvements prior to approving high water consumption projects.