By DESI RYBOLT
Guest Columnist
Data centers are multiplying across the Midwest as fast as big tech companies are able to buy up land and convince local communities to let them build.
This proliferation has already led to a huge spike in energy costs that’s causing residential customers’ rates to skyrocket.
There are solutions, including battery storage and affordable, available clean energy, that could help mitigate the energy challenge if policymakers pave the way for self-generation and distributed generation.
Unfortunately, data centers are just as water-hungry as they are energy-hungry, but there’s no easy solution to that challenge, which should worry communities across the state.
These massive warehouses of servers depend on enormous amounts of water to stay cool, often hundreds of millions of gallons each year – as much water as a small city. Yet almost no one can tell you exactly how much water they use, how it is sourced, or what safeguards exist to protect communities.
Recent research found that 75 percent of city leaders and more than half of business executives in the United States expect water risks to outpace all other infrastructure threats, especially as the American manufacturing sector continues to see rapid growth.
Indiana sits above deep aquifers and is crisscrossed by rivers, but our seeming water abundance has bred a dangerous complacency that data centers are poised to exploit.
A new report from the Alliance for the Great Lakes underscores how precarious this really is. Groundwater makes up a significant portion of the region’s water budget, and approximately two thirds of all Hoosiers depend on groundwater for their drinking and household water.
That means families from South Bend to Evansville depend on clean, accessible groundwater for their homes, farms and businesses. More than half of the water used by data centers is what’s called “consumptive.” That means it evaporates and does not return to the watershed – once it’s gone, it’s gone.
What makes this even more concerning is the lack of transparency.
The Great Lakes report found that while nearly all data centers purchase water from municipal systems connected to groundwater, less than one-third track or publicly report their use. In Indiana, that means local leaders are offering tax breaks and incentives for data centers whose true water footprint is invisible to the public. Without oversight, it’s impossible to know whether a facility will strain the same aquifer that supplies drinking water to nearby residents or irrigation water to farmers.
The industry points to technological fixes, like cooling with recycled wastewater or reducing evaporation rates, but these are imperfect and unguaranteed solutions that have other associated costs like increased energy requirements or potential pollutants. The truth is simpler and starker: we can’t manufacture more water.
Aquifers don’t refill on command. Remove too much water too fast, and the consequences are irreversible. Communities will see dry wells, higher costs for ratepayers and residents left scrambling to secure what once seemed plentiful.
This is why Indiana needs to step back and demand transparency and accountability. Water impacts must be part of every incentive package and siting decision, and data centers should be required to disclose their consumption and demonstrate sustainable practices before a shovel hits the ground.
State regulators must have the authority to curb withdrawals when water levels are at risk, not just after damage is already done. And economic development should never prioritize speculative digital infrastructure over the basic human right to safe, affordable drinking water.
Our water is our life. It fuels our farms, sustains our families, and anchors many parts of our economy. But once it’s over-promised to industries that take without returning, it’s gone for good. Indiana can and should embrace growth and innovation, but not at the expense of a finite resource none of us can live without.
Desi Rybolt is a water expert with Indiana Conservation Voters. Learn more at indianacv.org.
very good article.perhaps the noblesville city council should read this. they approve any housing development or business development that crosses their desk. where is the water coming from? they all need water, how long before the water becomes a problem?
Aside from water & energy usage – there are also other significant costs to the apparent rush towards ever increasing computer power & capability.
The evolution of this digital life has already served to divide U.S. , to vilify those with which we disagree, to twist the truth & distort the nature of how we define our democracy.
The next levels of this ; Adaptive AI & so on, will only further that course as it becomes even more difficult to discern what is & isn’t a ruse.
Given that we base important life decisions on what we believe to be true, this new era of Adaptive ( deceptive ? ) AI seems a very dangerous path to follow, or more accurately ; to be led down facilitated by large corporations & our own elected officials.
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This is a well written and informative article by Ms. Rybolt. It should be mandatory reading by all Indiana legislators, mayors, community planners and Chamber of Commerce members among others.
The most important sentence that should be memorized by EVERYONE: “we can’t manufacture more water”
The question I have is, “what is a data center and its purpose?” What data will a data center be collecting and why? Will it be everything digital? When businesses make the statement “we are paperless” mean they are contributing to these data centers and the future of wasting our water?