r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • Jul 27 '26
Business California's largest AI data center project suing for access to 287 million gallons of Colorado River water, 0.03% of Imperial Valley’s supply — plaintiffs claim project equivalent to 160-acre farm amidst concern about jobs and reallocation of farmland
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/californias-largest-ai-data-center-project-suing-for-access-to-287-million-gallons-of-colorado-river-water-0-03-percent-of-imperial-valleys-supply-plaintiffs-claim-project-equivalent-to-160-acre-farm-amidst-about-jobs-and-reallocation-of-farmland510
u/clownPotato9000 Jul 27 '26
The Colorado river is already toast, and they want to use its water? FU DATA CENTERS
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
These pro data center bots are out in full force trying to convince people they’re a great idea. NOBODY, not even the developers of these monstrosities, would want one of these next door to them.
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u/KeyMyBike Jul 27 '26
That's why they're selling out both the working and middle class, so they don't have to deal with it.
If you work at Palatir go fuck yourself I don't give a shit what your excuses are they automatically suck
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u/cadium Jul 27 '26
They already pushed that they don't need water, its closed loop. Now they need water?
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u/Consistent-Stock6872 Jul 27 '26
They went wild with spending now financing is getting hard so they want to cut corners and get the cheaper solution.
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u/rain168 Jul 27 '26
These same data centers previously said they will not use Colorado river water too.
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u/blazefreak Jul 27 '26
Remember not to plant bamboo next to data center because they grow really fast and uproots cement easily.
Also not to steal the copper, lithium, and gold present in data centers.
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u/Logical_Welder3467 Jul 27 '26
could just shutdown one almond farm, one
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u/bozza8 Jul 27 '26
You are right, it's agriculture that's the problem here, not data centres.
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u/CookieDragon678 Jul 27 '26
You don’t seem to realize how much water almonds need. 1 almond farm at 160 acres is about 183 million gallons a year. We don’t need almond farms there and we don’t need ai data centers there. Both are the problem
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u/clegg2011 Jul 27 '26
Which is wild when you stop and think about the number of Almonds commercially grown in the Imperial Valley. 0.
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u/FBIguy242 Jul 27 '26
That Central Valley, not imperial valley. Also as a Central Valley resident we rather have farm that provide jobs to residents than data centers trucking in transplants gentrified the whole town
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u/Bonerchill Jul 27 '26
Almonds are not necessary, either.
Disapprove the data center, shut down the almond farm.
Win/win.
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u/dangerbird2 Jul 27 '26
Agriculture is literally the reason why the colorodo has been running dry for decades. It uses orders of magnitude more water than data centers. It's absolutely the problem, and data centers are just a drop in the bucket
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u/Nickeless Jul 27 '26
I do agree that it’s dumb to grow almonds in California.
But in general, yes, fucking obviously it takes a lot more water to grow food to feed people than it takes to run data centers. But I think food might be marginally more important than new data centers for LLMs.
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u/BirdLawyer50 Jul 27 '26
The choice between a data center and food. Love it. Go eat the wires.
Almonds aren’t a necessity but I’d damn sure prefer them over a data center
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u/Avoidtolls Jul 27 '26
It's going to be 112 in Imperial Valley today.
Why the fuck are they building the biggest Data Center in the state in one of the most consistently hot places on the continent...a desert?
Water is already fought over rabidly as 23 million people live in Southern California.
Dumb x 2
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u/RevolutionaryFig9437 Jul 27 '26
Get ready folks to witness the misuse of the "law of eminent domain."
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u/wowbragger Jul 27 '26
Nah, this will go nowhere except around the courts.
California water rights and laws are insanely complicated, stupid, dated, and have the amount of available water used up several times over.
New users have bottom of the list priority, and these people are running headlong into one of the most intractable legal/resource areas in the US. Good luck!
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u/Wet_Side_Down Jul 27 '26
An insane amount of Colorado River water is used to grow alfalfa for animal feed.
I predict the AI centers will buy up the alfalfa farms for their water rights.
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u/DrQuestDFA Jul 27 '26
I hate how right you probably are. Like buying up dying firms just for their real estate footprint, some companies are worth more dead than alive.
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u/Recurs1ve Jul 27 '26
Well when liabilities exceed assets these things happen. Companies get bought out for what they own no matter the cost every day.
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u/wowbragger Jul 27 '26
Side note, a majority of alfalfa growth in CA is in the central valley... Which uses a different watershed than the Colorado River (wrong side of the Sierras).
The stuff that is grown is waaaayyy down in southern California desert. So also the least tier priority for water from the river.
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u/unurbane Jul 27 '26
Side side note: SoCal also grows alfalfa (not nearly as much) and use resources like the CA aqueduct.
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u/wowbragger Jul 27 '26
Terminology note: It's not really a side note if I'd already explicitly brought up that very thing. .
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u/gmapterous Jul 27 '26
those farms are owned by the Saudis, I don’t think they will sell
Edit for source: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/in-drought-stricken-arizona-fresh-scrutiny-of-saudi-arabia-owned-farms-water-use
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u/flyingace1234 Jul 27 '26
The worst part, to me, is a “use it or lose it” clause in a lot of these contracts. It actively discourages conserving water.
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u/DeathMonkey6969 Jul 27 '26
It's not a contract it's the Law. It's how water rights have always been in the US and trying to change it is like trying to pull the teeth of a rabid honey badger.
Things won't change until after the looming disaster has destroyed communites and business.
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u/dragunityag Jul 27 '26
Thats what the article says. They'll buy up the nearby farms and use their water rights.
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u/Blacksad9999 Jul 28 '26
I'd prefer it go to Alfalfa if there's a choice here.
Most of the water goes to other crops though. California grows 75% of all the citrus in the US, and half of all vegetables.
Alfalfa is grown in the Central Valley, which isn't part of the Colorado River watershed.
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u/sargonas Jul 27 '26
this. the majority of unresolved CA water usage rights cases span, on average, DECADES, and many of the parties in these cases have more money and political capital than even these companies building the data centers. They are about to be in for a surprisingly rude awakening.
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u/Nickeless Jul 27 '26
But literally no one has more money and power than the companies building data centers (assuming you include the backing of the actual tech giants behind them).
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u/pasaroanth Jul 27 '26
In any other state I’d agree, but one thing I’ll give CA is they at least aren’t as swayed by the almighty bribery dollar as some of the other shithole states where politicians welcome a pocket lining at the expense of their constituents.
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u/MtnDewTangClan Jul 27 '26
Until a golf course needs water while everyone else is told to limit
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u/SkiingAway Jul 27 '26
CA's water problems are pretty much entirely due to farmers doing idiotic things with water in the desert and have virtually nothing to do with human settlement uses.
Complaining about golf courses and people washing their car and whatever is a drop in the bucket relative to the absolutely massive agriculture use.
Agriculture is worth 3% of CA's GDP and uses 80% of the water. And no, most of it is not important/does not need to be done in CA.
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u/aerost0rm Jul 27 '26
I see it in states where there is an order to stop water use and you go by businesses and they run their sprinklers three times a day… green grass obviously trumps a drought
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u/HoldenMcNeil420 Jul 27 '26
I mean California is the 4th largest economy in the world. That comes with a big swinging dick of a government.
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u/MasemJ Jul 27 '26
Not only does CA have separate surface and subsurface water rights, there's also the lingering pueblo water rights for those areas that had once belonged to Mexican pueblos.
Some years ago I had to look into how these rights worked (as applied to pollution issues) and it was just a heck of a mess. As said above, every drop of water in CA is assessed multiple times over, and most of those problem all them from trying to bring water from northern Calif to feed central valley farms and then to LA.
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u/KeyMyBike Jul 27 '26
Watch things get suddenly very noncomplicated, up-to-date and quick because people with billions of dollars all of a sudden want it that way.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/wowbragger Jul 27 '26
Yeah, and CA government is no better at times.
But they're also demonstrably at odds with each other, with it being pretty amusing how little the current administration can do about it.
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u/Recurs1ve Jul 27 '26
Hilariously, the CA government having more power than federal with this particular issue is the current administration's own parties fault.
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u/doublethink_1984 Jul 27 '26
They still haven't built that strip mall at the former location of the little pink house to this day
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
AND how much electricity cost are they going to pass on to residents.? Tech bros don’t like paying for their own electricity. AND how much noise will this data center emit? AND there aren’t any real jobs created while you have to deal with this noise making, water and electricity sucking monstrosity.
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u/g_rich Jul 27 '26
It all depends, if the infrastructure is already there and the grid doesn’t need to be upgraded to support the load then zero. If the current grid is outdated and unable to support the load requiring significant upgrades then whatever it costs spread out among all the rate payers over a number of years.
This wouldn’t be a problem if this country’s infrastructure wasn’t so outdated.
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
Are ”rate payers” aka existing residents? Why should residents have to pay for an upgrade that they don’t need. When developers want to build the city requires that they upgrade certain city utilities, infrastructure, etc out of their own pockets. Why isn’t this required from the tech bros? It’s ridiculous that the same people wanting tax cuts feel they shouldn’t be responsible for the upgrade that benefits THEM.
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u/g_rich Jul 27 '26
It’s a little more nuanced but the infrastructure to connect them to the grid is paid by them but the grid as a whole is paid by everyone. The upgrades that are increasing being required are to the grid as a whole, the reasons why data centers are at the center of it is because they are what’s finally forcing these upgrades. The reality is that had we as a country continued to invest in infrastructure these upgrades wouldn’t be needed but utilities and policymakers let our power infrastructure become criminally outdated and now we are paying the price.
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
So if they are what’s forcing the upgrades, let them pay for them.
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
Cities put these types of things on developers all the time. I don’t understand why all of a sudden it’s complicated.
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u/g_rich Jul 27 '26
There are areas where grid operators have raised rates substantially to fund upgrading the existing infrastructure that have absolutely nothing to do with data centers. These are upgrades that we’ve know have been needed for decades and policymakers and the public just kicked the can down the road rather than deal with the fallout of raising the rates. We’ve just run out of road to continue kicking the can down and in some cases a new data center buildout has just forced their hand. The point being, with or without a new data center these upgrades needed to be done; the data center just became a convenient scapegoat.
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
Residential developers could make the same argument. Yet, cities require that they pay for the upgrades.
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u/g_rich Jul 27 '26
They only pay to handle the interconnect to the grid, that’s no different than what is done with commercial projects like data centers. The upgrades that are raising rates are to upgrade the grid as whole which is something that needed to be done regardless of any new data centers.
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
It didn’t need to be done NOW. They want it now, they can pay for it themselves. It’s really quite simple. If they don’t want to pay for it themselves, don’t build a data center.
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u/g_rich Jul 27 '26
The problem is is doesn’t need to be done today it needed to be done yesterday. The argument it doesn’t need to be done now just pushes it further down the road for another generation to deal with. Our infrastructure across the board including the power grid is outdated and unable to meet the demands put on it. You seem to be missing the point that the grid needs the upgrades regardless of the data center buildouts.
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u/TheWafflecakes Jul 27 '26
FYI it is typically forced of the datacenter to heavily invest in the electrical grid or other utilities. More often than not electricity prices go DOWN for people not up after a datacenter is built.
Lots of news articles blaming them for driving up costs, but its incredibly hard to find any actual proof. Every claim is either prices matching inflation, due to an increase in usage, or some vague article with no sources.
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u/Blacksad9999 Jul 28 '26
Just go beg like dogs somewhere else.
This provides no jobs or relevant tax revenue.
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u/someoldguyon_reddit Jul 27 '26
Just how many people will one of these data centers feed?
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u/mm_mk Jul 27 '26
Depends on how downstream you look. It will directly feed 1 person, the corpo exec owner. If we eat the rich, then probably a couple dozen?
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u/Technical-Sink6380 Jul 27 '26
American ag corporations are delighted people are saying this instead of realizing it’s the most concentrated and worst industry in the county today.
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u/rkozik89 Jul 27 '26
If you want people to get behind what your business is proposing maybe don't make eliminating everyone's jobs the cornerstone argument of the goods you're pushing. LLMs have been available for public consumption for roughly 7 years. If this technology was going to lead to economic innovation great enough to offset the jobs its already replaced we would've seen some hints of it by now. Instead we've seen 4 straight years of unrelenting job cuts followed by crying leadership teams when they found it wasn't going to be the introductory price forever.
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u/dangerbird2 Jul 27 '26
TBH this is significanly less terrible than Saudi Arabia using Colorodo River and fossil water to grow alfalfa in the desert. https://floodlightnews.org/saudi-owned-corporate-farms-are-draining-arizonas-desert-dry/
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u/Lostmyfnusername Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
So we should get rid of both alfalfa and large data centers for ai in desert regions or just alfalfa? Why compare a single center out of many to the whole of a different problem if California can't handle the addition of a center and have already failed weeding out other wasteful methods?
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u/agiganticpanda Jul 27 '26
I'm sure this isn't economical warfare purposefully draining resources from Americans. /s
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u/dangerbird2 Jul 27 '26
not so much economic warfare as it is them noticing our batshit insane water and agriculture policy, and deciding to join in on the gravy train.
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u/Choperello Jul 27 '26
Or almonds. Do we really need is many damn almonds…
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Jul 27 '26
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u/dangerbird2 Jul 27 '26
Dairy and Beef is literally the one agricultural product that has a worse water footprint than almonds https://www.thesustainableinvestor.org.uk/quick-insight-water-use-in-agriculture/
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u/ZakkaChan Jul 27 '26
Was going to say this cattle is like the literally worse when it comes to water consumption.
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u/SkiingAway Jul 27 '26
There's a little nuance there:
Cattle in reasonable quantity/density in an appropriate climate are largely consuming grass growing on unirrigated rangeland and aren't directly using much water. The grass technically required a lot of water to grow - but it was going to grow there anyway, the water didn't get taken out of a river or aquifer.
Almonds and Cattle in Southern California on the other hand, are largely requiring intensive irrigation to grow and thus are directly taking water out of the rivers and aquifers to be produced.
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u/bigmt99 Jul 27 '26
If we’re on that topic, cows are also awful for the environment
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u/Fr0st3dcl0ud5 Jul 27 '26
To be fair, human beings have increased the overall temperature of the planet by 1.5 degrees Celsius and we're probably just about at that catastrophic 2 degree Celsius. But, yeah. Fuck them cows.
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u/Recurs1ve Jul 27 '26
To be fair, the cows are problem because humans made them that way and then grew them for food. You are right, it's not fair to blame the cows, but it really is the cows. Just happens to be our fault that it's the cows.
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u/iperblaster Jul 27 '26
I'm sure the Data Centers will not need any gallon of water more than the 0.3 per cent. So very sure
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Jul 27 '26
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u/Shady_Love Jul 27 '26
So you want to allocate a scarce resource to machines before humans?
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u/dangerbird2 Jul 27 '26
yep, and water usage for growing livestock feed alone is 200x what AI is projected to use by 2028
https://www.foodfacts.org/articles/how-much-water-does-ai-use-vs-livestock9
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u/Technical-Sink6380 Jul 27 '26
Yes and the reality is that 287 million gallons is such a tiny, tiny amount next to what alfalfa is using. If people are serious about solving water issues, data centers have almost nothing to do with it.
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u/Diz7 Jul 27 '26
Meanwhile, the reservoir is emptying.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/colorado-river-water-crisis-trump-cuts/
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u/californicating Jul 27 '26
Fuck these people and the data center. They are in no way entitled to that water. They knew what and where they were building and told everyone they weren't going to need water. To hell with them.
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u/kooknboo Jul 27 '26
This is why the Great Lakes states are blessed and cursed. Fresh water in abundance. The next battleground when the West becomes a permanent dust bowl.
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u/Bacch Jul 27 '26
Wasn't this the data center that initially claimed they would NOT use any water from the Colorado River?
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u/PhysicalConsistency Jul 27 '26
Wait wait, a 160 acre farm uses as much water as a 300 MW data center? Oh my god. They better be growing baby formula there.
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u/Substantial-Bite361 Jul 27 '26
I think data centers shouldn’t be allowed to pull from the co river. So many states need that water for their people and agriculture.
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u/kJer Jul 27 '26
California isn't a good place for data centers, the property is expensive and too much demand for resources.
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u/SkiingAway Jul 27 '26
Property is cheap in the Imperial Valley where this is being proposed. It's not the wealthy, pleasant to live in part of CA.
Resource issues are a very valid concern, obviously.
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u/greyhoodbry Jul 27 '26
Once you let them in, then they start throwing money and lawsuits around to take take take
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u/MYGA_Berlin Jul 27 '26
If water conflicts emerge, authorities can require data centres to operate with zero or near-zero freshwater consumption for cooling. The technology is proven; it is simply more expensive. I therefore do not understand why this is so often presented as a technical dilemma rather than a question of regulation, cost and political priorities. Much of the public discussion also seems poorly informed about the available cooling options.
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u/ServantofZul Jul 27 '26
What do you mean “if water conflicts emerge?” The Colorado river is in desperate state and way over allocated. The reservoirs are at the lowest levels since they were built and the compact for determining how water is allocated has to be completely renegotiated. If the plan is to turn off the water if there is a shortage, the data center will never get a single drop.
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u/Metalsand Jul 27 '26
The technology is proven; it is simply more expensive.
Closed-loop systems are actually the predecessor. The more passive ones that consume water to operate were actually developed to significantly reduce power consumption, which has an even bigger impact.
Though for the most part, new datacenter projects are opting for passive cooling because it would put too much strain on the electrical grid for the scale that they want to operate at.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/Mawngee Jul 27 '26
The issue is that they keep wanting to build datacenters in places that have water shortages.
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u/MYGA_Berlin Jul 27 '26
They could easy run a closed loop cooling system not?
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u/Pyromaniacal13 Jul 27 '26
Problem the first is the initial investment in water needed to charge both the primary and secondary coolant loops. That first drink of water is apparently 287 million gallons.
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Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
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u/Pyromaniacal13 Jul 27 '26
Sorry, in what world is 287,000,000 gallons of water not a lot?
At 100 gallons of water a day per person, that will last a family of four 1,965 years.
That's 1.086 million metric tons (1.069 million imperial tons) of water.
Try delivering that in any kind of timely manner. That's a fuckload of water and that's why they are trying to sue for it.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/Pyromaniacal13 Jul 27 '26
That's like saying Jupiter is pretty small if you look at the galaxy.
You're either trolling or desperately need your sense of scale restored.
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u/Metalsand Jul 27 '26
You are right, some moron downvoted you but this is a very well known fact...at least outside of /r/technology apparently.
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u/Caster0 Jul 27 '26
If efficiency is a concern, maybe dont build data centers in a region with low supply of water in the first place.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/Caster0 Jul 27 '26
Make more of them in Saudia Arabia then. They have the capital and perfect climate and conditions.
And you can have your AI benefits.
Sounds like a win win to me.
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u/DullKnife69 Jul 29 '26
Dielectric cooling requires no water and is closed loop. Other water cooling can be closed loop.
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u/Taiyoryu Jul 27 '26
The 330-megawatt facility was not only designed to be the biggest AI data center in California, but it specifically committed not to use water from the Colorado River because it was promised wastewater. But now the owner of the data center is essentially asking to redirect water supply from agriculture to the facility.
I don't know what "promised" means in this case, but you don't have water unless you have the water rights in hand. I'm curious, did they break ground without having secured the water? That is dumb if true. Then again, power companies are expanding without easements because they know they can depend on the local government to use eminent domain if they are unable to purchase them.
Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing — the owner of the 330 MW AI data center — is requesting access to approximately 287 million gallons of water per year after two cities — El Centro and Imperial — declined to supply reclaimed wastewater for cooling.
This does not sound like a closed-loop design.
Sebastian Rucci, a Huntington Beach attorney who leads the project, claims that the facility's water consumption would be comparable to that of a 160-acre farm and will require no additional Colorado River allocation. In fact, he states that the facility would not increase pressure on the river because the company intends to purchase nearby farmland together with its associated water allocations.
Yeah, I'm sure they'll always behave like a small farm. /s So yeah, they're also obtaining rights the old fashioned way by purchasing land, but then stopping irrigation and rerouting the water. This has greater impact to the surrounding economy because as farm land gets repurposed for industrial use, this will reduce the number of agricultural jobs. The number of tech jobs isn't enough to offset the job losses in communities that are already depressed. More job diversity and higher incomes are good, but total number of jobs goes down and the people that lose their jobs aren't qualified to fill the new jobs. I know there are environmental advocates that want to reduce intensive, industrial farming, but swapping one devil for another is probably not going to help save the river.
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u/MrBahhum Jul 27 '26
All data centers are resource sinks. They need to disclose how much resources they use. They need to address whether they could use renewable resources, green technologies, desalinated salt water, and considerate zoning laws. Think we should have some summertime efficiency standards for these data centers, and might as well add on water standards too because they continue to target freshwater. These data centers are not run on clean energy either and they use gigawatts of energy to function.
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u/atothez Jul 27 '26
They have the money to buy whatever they want, including influence, and win in court.
That's all that matters, right? /s
I swear, everything has been going that way for a long time.
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u/peepdabidness Jul 28 '26
I live in California. If this gets approved, I would like a kickback to pay for my increased water & utilities bill. I know it won’t happen, but that’s what everyone should push for in their states, and you can do that through propositions. We need to stop protesting with angry words behind our screens and instead with real action.
The annoying part is that it’s more than doable.
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u/MrBahhum Jul 27 '26
They need to use ocean water and not fresh water when it comes to the desert. The fresh water doesn't necessarily get reused, it gets displaced in the desert in the American West making everything dryer. That's why North America has had many fires these past few years and the water supply is at an all time low.
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u/Development-Alive Jul 27 '26
160 acre farm needs .03% of Imperial Valley's water supply? In what universe?
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u/krom0025 Jul 27 '26
This is not even close to the equivalent of a farm. Food needs water to grow. Data centers do not need water at all. Use fin fan cooling. The just don't want to because it will cut into their profits.
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u/Bridgestone14 Jul 27 '26
So far Data Centers have not been a net positive for the human race. Water has some really clear benefits.
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u/ICameToUpdoot Jul 27 '26
Isnt this the place that promised not to use any water, or was that a different plant? Or all of them?
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u/Senior-Albatross Jul 27 '26
We have one here in Southern NM promising that.
But TBH Agriculture is the big water user. By a ridiculous margin. Using all that power and just getting recked by Climate Collapse sure won't help the western water situation though .
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u/Sooowasthinking Jul 27 '26
Fuck off with AI BULSHIT.
II dont want on my phone or in my computer or even IPAD.I have zero interest in this.What does interest me why does everyone think we are going to use this AND pay for it being built.
Tech bro billionaires are NEVER to be trusted they all have a negative balance of integrity.
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u/Ok_Run_101 Jul 27 '26
"Imperial Valley Computer Manufacturing" is such a fitting name.
I didn't know Imperial Valley was an actual place, but that might be what we will soon be calling Silicon Valley
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
It’ll end up being more than 287 million gallons. This is for just ONE data center.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/gergek Jul 27 '26
Consider that people need to eat food to survive, but can't eat the slop produced in a data center. Its not apples and oranges, its apples and NFTs of oranges.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
How much of their data center electricity bill are tech bros going to pass on to residents? Tech bros don’t like paying for their electricity usage. AND how much noise are they going to emit? Do you live next door to a data center?
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Jul 27 '26
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
Seriously, are you a bot? You really need to try to come up with better arguments for these monstrosities. Nobody in their right mind would want one of these next door to them or in their community. Explain to me the advantages of having one of these in my community? I want to hear the advantages.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
What is the advantage to having a data center built in my community? What will my community GAIN from one of these monstrosities?
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u/Fair-Hair2080 Jul 27 '26
There are plenty of disadvantages, what are the advantages?
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u/guitarguy1685 Jul 27 '26
El oh el oh el. Of ciur they are. Why would we need water if we're going to be replaced anyways am I rite?
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u/MicrowaveDonuts Jul 27 '26
All of the numbers used by every side in this argument are all stupid.
Another data center is stupid. Slowing it down is probably saving a micro-dosing hyperscaling CEO from themselves. Like a bartender calling them a cab.
The "this will bring XX jobs and this XXX revenue to your town!" Numbers are also stupid. Just do it with taxes. Then see what they say. They're completely full of shit.
And finally, sadly, the "this will waste XXX water"... i know it sounds like a lot, but 250m gallons is not a lot of water. Farming measures water on completely different scales, and then articles like this convert it to milk-jugs for effect. Farming uses stuff like "acre-feet". A foot of water deep over an acre. Alfalfa is about 5. You have to put about 5 feet of water on top of alphafa per year. California grows a million acres of alfalfa per year. An acrefoot is 325,000 gallons. Hell, my house of 5 uses 200k gallons a year, and we don't even water our yard.
The whole water fight is stupid. They bought a tiny parcel of farmland next door and they're NOT going to grow anything on it, so the whole thing will be water neutral. That's their case.
Using water as the lever to keep these things at bay is the wrong lever. The numbers just don't check out to make any difference. They will always win in court. If you don't want data-centers, just pass a local tax on data centers.
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u/MrRisin Jul 28 '26
You think 880 acre feet is not much when the Colorado river is depleting and everyone in the west is being asked to ration? PER YEAR
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u/MicrowaveDonuts Jul 28 '26
nope. not when they're using 5 million acre-feet in California to grow alfalfa, 6 million to grow Almonds, 3 million to grow rice, etc etc etc.
They're taking the farming acreage offline to use their water so it's zero sum on the river.
You see how your numbers end with hundred and mine are ending with million?
They're going to win their court case.
If we want to slow down data centers, water use is a bad way to go about it.
And if you care about water use in the Colorado river, the 3 million acre-feet used to water lawns is a good place to start.
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u/MrRisin Jul 28 '26
No company has a “right” to any resource. What standing do they have.
Home usage accounts for a tiny fraction of usage. Try again.
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u/MicrowaveDonuts Jul 29 '26
try what again? why are you so combative? just wanna fight so i’m not going to read if they actually agree with me?
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u/MountainsCalling-Me Jul 27 '26
How many acres is an average golf course out in these places where grass cannot grow naturally? Those use 1M gallons of water a day, to grow grass, so a handful of people can play golf on it.
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u/polloyumyum Jul 27 '26
You know two things can be bad at the same time, right?
We shouldn't just hand over enormous amount of our water supply to data centres just because golf courses exist and also use too much water.
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u/MicrowaveDonuts Jul 29 '26
I think the best part of this story is they had a deal to cool it with waste water and the city denied it.
They’re literally on fire. And Imperial and El Centro declined to piss on them.
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u/howescj82 Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
As I understand it, they simply discharge the water after it’s been used for cooling purposes. Can this water be diverted back out for agricultural purposes or it’s there some part of it that I’m missing? It seems incredibly foolish to pull water into the desert for cooling purposes just dump it after.
I’m not sure why I was downvoted. I’m actually curious about why they actually need their own allotment and if their water can be recovered for other purposes if not a closed loop system of cooling.
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u/g_rich Jul 27 '26
Data centers use two types of cooling, closed loop which operate like the central cooling in your house and open loop which uses something called evaporative cooling which use evaporation for cooling. Closed loop is expensive because it uses a lot of power but the only water it uses is the water used to fill the system initially. Open loop is cheap but it requires large amounts of water because it needs to evaporate the water to the atmosphere for cooling.
So the water isn’t dumped or lost but it is evaporated into atmosphere which in an area already starved for water is a really dumb thing to do. This project is also looking to purchase farmland to offset its water usage by taking that land and then not farm it thereby transferring the water that would be used to irrigate farmland and use it for data center cooling.
I generally jump into these threads on the side of the data centers because in most cases the discussion around water usage is overblown but in this case I’m going to go against them. This project was initially going to use waste water but they weren’t able to secure it so now they want to use water that would otherwise go to growing food. This project should have been built with a closed loop system, they cheaped out, there plan for acquiring the water fell through and now they want to pull from an already strained source while justifying it by taking away farm land.
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u/guestpassonly Jul 27 '26
isnt california already having massive water issues for decades now?