AI Growth Sparks Local Water Crisis In Georgia

As AI grows, Georgia residents like Beverly Morris face water shortages, blaming nearby data centers that consume millions of gallons to stay cool.

The BBC reports the story of Beverly Morris, a woman who retired in 2016 into a peaceful rural house in Fayette County, Georgia, before discovering that within 10 years she would need to carry water buckets for flushing her toilet. This is the result of living just 400 yards from a large data center run by Meta.

“I can’t live in my home with half of my home functioning and no water,” Morris told the BBC. “I can’t drink the water,” she added.

She blames the data center construction near her residence for her private well becoming contaminated with sediment, which now produces hazy water and unstable pipes. The independent study conducted by Meta reports that there are no adverse effects on groundwater, but Morris continues to doubt their findings. “I’m afraid to drink the water,” she said to The BBC. “Am I worried about it? Yes,” she added.

The United States sees a growing number of large data centers being constructed to support cloud storage services and AI tools such as ChatGPT. The construction of these facilities results in significant water consumption costs. On hot days, a single center can consume millions of gallons of water to cool servers.

“These are very hot processors,” said Mark Mills of the National Center for Energy Analytics, as reported by the BBC. “It takes a lot of water to cool them down,” he added.

Research into the environmental impact of AI-generated messages shows that even small digital actions carry energy costs. Sending just one AI-assisted email per week over a year can consume around 7.5 kWh, about the same as what nine homes use in an hour. While this may seem minor, experts warn that such habits contribute to a larger issue. The data centers powering AI already account for an estimated 2% of global electricity use, a number expected to grow rapidly as AI becomes more embedded in daily life.

Further research shows that tech companies often withhold exact figures of AI data centers energy use. These facilities can consume as much power as tens of thousands of homes, placing serious strain on local grids.

The state of Georgia, with its humid climate, has become a leading location for data center development. The rapid development of data centers has raised worries about water contamination and resource exhaustion.  “It shouldn’t be that colour,” said George Diets, a local volunteer, after collecting a murky water sample downstream from another center under construction, as reported by The BBC.

Amazon, along with other companies, has established a goal to return more water to the environment than they extract by 2030. “This was my perfect spot,” Morris said to the BBC. “But it isn’t anymore,” she added.