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by simianwords 25 days ago
> Sucking 30% of the water from the town's water system without paying for it and reducing everyone's water pressure is not a way to make friends.

Huh? What's this one? Which data centre sucks 30% of water?
1 comments
toss1 25 days ago
This one

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/data-center-used...

Not only that, while the closed-loop water-cooling systems are indeed a good idea, they do NOT solve the problem of water consumption during the years of construction, which is exactly the problem in this instance to which I was referring.

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simianwords 25 days ago
Where did you get the 30% figure? I think this was a mistake - it was 30 million gallons which is <1% of the county's water usage.
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toss1 25 days ago
It may well have been an error, good catch. In any case, whatever the amount, it was a large enough quantity pulled — unpaid — to cause the pressure in the entire system to drop, and drop enough that everyone noticed, complained, and set off the protests.

And, this is NOT the data center cooling usage, this is during construction, which is expected to last ~5 years.

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simianwords 25 days ago
The water pressure was also not because of the datacenter but something else totally

> The original county letter also referenced complaints from residents near the Annelise Park subdivision about low water pressure.

> Rapson said Fayette County Water System later installed monitoring equipment in the area to track pressure levels following the complaints.

> “Since we’ve been reading it, there’s been no issue,” Tinsley said.

https://thecitizen.com/2026/05/11/behind-fayettes-qts-water-...

Would urge everyone to be careful and not fall into trap of believing everything at face value.

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