As Drought Deepens, Colorado Still Has No Rules For Data Center Water Use

Colorado is confronting a deepening drought, prompting Governor Jared Polis to activate Phase 2 of the state's Drought Response Plan and Denver Water to impose mandatory watering restrictions. Despite these severe conditions, the state lacks a unified approach to regulating water consumption by data centers, a critical issue highlighted by the recent failure of a statewide water reporting bill. Cities like Aurora have proactively established a tiered framework, integrated into city code in 2025, that prohibits new data centers relying on evaporative cooling due to significant water loss. For instance, the QTS hyperscale campus in Aurora was approved because it utilizes non-evaporative cooling. In contrast, Denver's framework is less stringent, requiring only that cooling water be recycled once before discharge. This difference is starkly illustrated by CoreSite's DE3 campus in Denver, estimated to use 235,000 gallons of water per day, significantly higher than other local data centers, with Denver Water's spokesperson Todd Hartman admitting they do not track the amount lost to evaporation. CoreSite reportedly declined to cover the infrastructure costs for a recycled water connection that would have eliminated its draw on drinking water. State-level efforts to address this discrepancy have faltered. Senate Bill 26-102, which would have mandated annual water use reporting from large data centers by June 2028, died in a Colorado Senate committee after six hours of testimony. Senator Cathy Kipp, the bill's sponsor, cited an unresolved fiscal note and opposition from construction unions, though the Colorado Department of Natural Resources had advocated for stronger accountability measures. This marks the second consecutive year a data center accountability bill has failed. While Denver Water and the City of Denver operate separately, Denver is moving towards a moratorium on new data center construction in certain neighborhoods, indicating a growing recognition of the problem at the local level. The ongoing drought and increasing demands from a rapidly expanding data center industry continue to put pressure on Colorado's limited water resources.