California Data Centers' Water Use Undisclosed Amid Expansion into Water-Stressed Regions
A new report reveals that data center operators in California are not publicly disclosing their water usage, even as these facilities expand into water-stressed regions like the Central and Imperial Valleys. This lack of transparency is attributed to a patchwork of state and local policies, prompting new legislative efforts to mandate disclosure after a previous bill was vetoed by Governor Newsom.
A report by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University highlights a significant issue in California: data center operators are not publicly disclosing their water usage, despite a rapid expansion into water-stressed areas such as the Central and Imperial Valleys.
The study, led by Irina Raicu from Santa Clara University's Internet Ethics program and Iris Stewart-Frey, a professor of environmental science, reinforces previous findings that a lack of cohesive state, federal, and local policies allows data center builders to avoid revealing their actual water consumption. Last year, California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a measure aimed at addressing this transparency gap, but the legislature is now attempting to pass new bills that would mandate disclosures on water use and planning.
Shaolei Ren, an AI environmental impact expert at UC Riverside, who was not involved in the study, emphasized that this limited public information hinders communities and researchers from assessing the power-water trade-offs. The researchers found few publicly available environmental impact reports for California's data centers, with most found for facilities in Santa Clara. Many projects bypass stringent environmental reviews through pathways like 'ministerial approval,' and even when documents are posted, details on ownership, size, cooling systems, and water sources are often missing or vague. Efforts by researchers to obtain usage data from water providers in data center cluster areas were unsuccessful, underscoring the severe lack of transparency as data centers continue to primarily cluster in the south San Francisco Bay Area.