One of the most common concerns surrounding the possibility of a data center in any community is how much water one would need.
So, how much water would a hypothetical data center need in Bloomington-Normal? No one really knows.
Joao Ferreira is acting director of the Center for Economic and Policy Studies at the Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service.
Ferreira, based at the University of Virginia, and the center published a study on data centers in the Great Lakes region earlier this year. Among many findings, how much water a data center could use is tied directly to different factors.
Chief among them, data centers are not required to disclose how much water they use.
“I advocate for more transparency because as an economist, I only want more data. But also because I think it’s very difficult for utilities to plan for the water consumption when they don’t even know how much water a data center will use directly,” he said.
Ferreira said water use of a data center is undeniable. If a data center uses water for cooling, he classified it as scope one. If it does not use water directly, it is called scope two, which still accounts for impacting water sources in some way.
Scope two data centers still use water for other energy needs. Whether it be electricity, nuclear or coal, those utilities use water somewhere in the production line.
Again, the problem in drawing conclusions is made difficult from the lack of knowledge on how much water they are using for both scopes. What knowledge they do have comes from other utilities on their water use.
“Sometimes there are NDAs put in place because they are a big user, so it’s not that you can knock on the data center and say, ‘Hey, how much are you using of water every month?’ Because they might decide to give you that information or not,” Ferreira said.
Brad Tietz is director of government affairs for the Data Center Coalition [DCC], a national membership association for the industry. Tietz said while water reporting is not standardized across the state, there are some requirements.
“There is the Water Use Act of 1983, and that requires any withdrawal from a direct ground source of 100,000 gallons or more in a 24-hour period has to be reported to the Illinois [Department of Natural Resources], but it does not apply to water utilities” he said.
He said he sees a lot of his members self-reporting their water use.
Tietz said during the legislative session in Springfield, DCC argued for amending that act to require just that from all large water users whether they are industrial or commercial.
DCC also fought for the passage of HB-2391, which allows data centers to use treated wastewater for cooling. Tietz said that water was only previously allowed for irrigation.
He said he is not against making requirements of data centers, in fact he is for it. The group just does not want to see the POWER Act restrict only them.
“This would be one of the first industries in the state to have a statewide water permit,” said Tietz. “That would open the door to a lot of potential challenges. There’s a number of steps and to get your statewide water permit that opens you up to regulatory exposure; the EPA could revoke your water permit at its own discretion without any recourse for the company.”
He said the group is also in favor of data centers helping to pay for new energy infrastructure.
Why water over other kinds of cooling systems?
Why exactly do data centers prefer water for cooling in the first place? According to Lauren Keeler, associate professor at Arizona State University, water is much cheaper to buy than other forms of cooling systems and centers can get it for the same prices as citizens.
“Data centers are operating as a kind of municipal customer,” Keeler said at a data center webinar earlier this year. “So, they’re taking the water that you would take from your municipal utility and they’re just buying it just like any other large water customer.”
Keeler said data centers would place a significant strain on a community's resources such as water. Tietz disagreed with that sentiment and said water is not always the preferred cooling method.
“It’s a decision based on the design of the facility and the location of the facility. Part of the challenge that we have in trying to standardize this across different states is every community is different and the stress level of all these different watersheds is also very different,” he said.
“Those are all things that you take into account when you are siting a project, but, again, it kind of goes back to what kind of data center you are looking to build.”
Different municipalities price water differently. The City of Bloomington and Town of Normal both charge monthly service/maintenance fees in addition to how much water was used.
Take 5,000 gallons of water, for example. In the Town of Normal, that costs $42.86 a month. A data center planned in Joliet, about an hour south of Chicago, will use 3,600,000 gallons of water a month.
Just as the case with increased electricity demand, a higher utility bill is almost promised if a data center comes to town, Keeler said, because of the strain on other utilities who use water themselves.
“When utilities look to expand energy infrastructure, the cost for that expansion gets amortized over a number of years and paid back through increased rates. And those rates, unless special provisions are made, are paid by all ratepayers,” she said.
Keeler said in Arizona and the Phoenix area, there have been proposals to reclassify new large energy customers and require special rates for them. Such proposals also would require data centers to pay for the new infrastructure they require.
“I think what you really don’t want to see is that the energy system gets overbuilt and the rapidly expanding demand for AI doesn’t last — and those costs end up getting borne by your average household paying their electricity bill,” said Keeler.
‘Details matter’
When it is hard to gauge how much water a potential data center would use, communities consequently have a hard time understanding if they have the water capacity for one or not.
Andrew Rehn is climate policy director at Prairie Rivers Network [PRN], a statewide nonprofit based in Champaign. PRN focuses on protecting water resources.
Rehn emphasized the inherent “trade off” that comes with water, regardless of the decision to use it for cooling or not.
“All depends on where you’re getting that water from, and if that water is plentiful and available, or if that water is water stressed. And then on top of that, we need to be planning for and thinking about drought scenarios while we contemplate a data center coming to town,” Rehn said.
Bloomington, which relies on Lake Bloomington and Lake Evergreen for water, recently saw a drought lasting several months. It ended on March 20, followed by a very wet summer.
Rehn said it is difficult for a community to measure if its water sources are appropriate for a data center because of the secrecy of current facilities in the industry.
“Details matter and the details are not really transparent,” he said. “If somebody tells you they’re using a closed loop system, you’d say ‘OK, tell me more,’ because that really does not say a whole lot about how water is being used on site.”
Where does the water go? How often is the system recharged? Where does the new water come from? Where is it disposed of? Those are all questions Rehn said have to be answered for the community but often are not because there is no legal requirement to do so.
“I don’t know all the details about the DeKalb data center. Maybe they’re great; the mayor certainly loves them…” he said. “But we don’t regulate for the good ones… and we need to have protections in place that if that data center has a water plan, if they’re being thoughtful about their water resources.”
“They’ve already got their water plan; they just have to tell us what it is.”
Rehn serves on the Data Center Activities Task Force for Champaign County, a group created by the county board to examine issues related to development and recommend regulations for data centers.
The group is an opportunity for communities to be better defended and ready to consider such a facility.
“The POWER Act has some good ideas that we pulled in as well, but there’s also limitations for what the county can do and so that’s been a lot of our conversations,” Rehn said. “Government can’t do everything simply because the people want it.”
Rehn said the group has taken a lot of direction from ordinances in Aurora. He said many conversations center around protecting the Mahomet Aquifer, the sole source of drinking water for nearly 1 million people in Central Illinois, including the Town of Normal.
Some people in McLean County might not want to have the conversation about data centers at all. Rehn said it is wise for every county and municipality to be thinking about rules.
“What do we need? What powers do we have now? What powers could we have?” Rehn said. “I know in Champaign County where I’m on the task force, the county really needs to be proactive because without having home rule status, they don’t have as much power.”
A community without home rule status can only rely on state law. Bloomington and Normal each have home rule, giving them the ability to enact ordinances above and beyond what the state mandates. McLean County does not, but had the power to put strict zoning polices in place under current state law.
Rehn said having defined processes help the public to know what the rules are and what protections they have. It prevents the feeling of being blindsided by problems with a resource such as water.
Pollution and contamination
Another element often circulating the talks of water with data centers is the possibility of not just taking it away but ruining it by making fresh drinking water unusable. Common worries include contaminating a water source with chemicals and polluting the environment.
Peggy Keylin is a member of Illinois People’s Action [IPA], a grassroots advocacy organization.
“The thing that hits me immediately and most is that people are worried about the future,” she said. “They’re worried about their kids and grandkids.”
IPA has made itself present around the state, and in Bloomington-Normal, digitally and physically to speak out against issues including, but not limited to, data centers and carbon sequestration.
They often hold workshops to hear resident concerns.
“Another thing is that most of these projects that we’re talking about are water that goes purely for a corporation’s use and a private corporation,” Keylin said. “It’s the public water is the water that is vital to the life of a human, not vital to the life of a machine that I know of.”
“Our public resources [are] being siphoned off by corporations for their profit, basically.”
IPA also encourages residents to speak up and let their voices be heard at events like government meetings or public panel discussions.
In the case where McLean County drafted the strictest zoning ordinance in the state for data centers, she called the response from officials “robust” after having listened to the public about concerns for water and other items.
“I know when the zoning commission looked at the ordinance dealing with data centers recently, they really listened. That ordinance was much stronger than the previous version,” said Keylin. “The different forums that have been out in the communities are wonderful. It’s a place for people to come…but the idea of exchange and the public voices, I think, are really necessary.”
A data center consultant WGLT spoke to in June doubted the likelihood of water contamination. He said the companies he works for are under contract to treat the water they use and only use EPA-approved chemicals to do so.
