Amazon’s mid-Missouri data center could use 50 million gallons of water per year
Amazon Web Services plans to build a 17-building data center, known as "Project Green," in New Florence, Missouri. This facility is projected to use approximately 50 million gallons of water annually, drawn from deep underground wells tapping into an aquifer. Documents from Montgomery County detail the proposed water usage and its comparison to other local demands.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is planning a new data center campus, dubbed "Project Green," in New Florence, Missouri, located about 75 miles west of St. Louis near the I-70 and Route 19 interchange. The proposed development consists of 17 buildings.
According to documents titled "AWS Proposed Project" found on the Montgomery County website, the data center is anticipated to consume around 50 million gallons of water per year at full buildout, equating to about 2.9 million gallons per building annually. This usage is compared to that of a golf course for the entire campus and a restaurant for individual buildings. The documents indicate that water would be primarily used for cooling, but only less than 7% of the time, with natural air cooling accounting for approximately 93% of operations.
Further information from an FAQ document on Montgomery County's site reveals that the water would be sourced from wells drilled at least 1,500 feet deep, drawing from a significant underground aquifer. The projected water demand from the data center would represent roughly 0.03% of the aquifer's average annual sustainable yield. Construction timelines for Project Green were not specified in the publicly available county documents.