Rapid growth in data centers and other high-demand computing facilities is putting new attention on local water infrastructure after incidents in Oklahoma, Wyoming and Georgia raised questions about leaks, wastewater, construction runoff and the ability of aging systems to absorb industrial-scale development.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
A massive water leak in Oklahoma, a wastewater contamination dispute in Wyoming and complaints of muddy well water in Georgia are drawing attention to an emerging challenge surrounding America’s data-center boom: what happens when large technology projects arrive in communities with aging or sensitive water infrastructure.
The number of data-center projects has doubled over the past year, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation report, even as opposition to their construction has grown in some communities over electricity use, water demand and infrastructure impacts.
Recent problems have included a multimillion-gallon leak in El Reno, Oklahoma, a wastewater contamination dispute involving a Meta project in Cheyenne, Wyoming and complaints about muddy well water near major development in Morgan County, Georgia.
The circumstances differ considerably, and none establishes that data centers inherently contaminate drinking water.
In El Reno, the immediate problem was a failed private water line at a Bitcoin mining and computing facility.
In Cheyenne, municipal officials traced a rare bacterium to industrial wastewater discharged during construction of Meta’s data-center campus, while Meta and its contractor dispute aspects of the city’s findings.
In Georgia, residents’ muddy-water complaints began after extensive grading associated with an electric-vehicle plant, and Meta disputes assertions connecting its neighboring data center to the problem.
Together, however, the incidents illustrate the pressures that large industrial projects can place on local water networks and the disputes that can follow when those systems encounter failures.
El Reno Loses Millions of Gallons
El Reno’s crisis began when a private water-line failure at a Bitcoin mining operation drained millions of gallons from the municipal system, disrupting schools, businesses and government offices.
City officials ultimately traced the leak to a facility operated by Athlon Blockchain Technology.
El Reno later condemned the Bitcoin mining site, citing fire and life-safety violations in addition to the water-line failure.
The facility consists of mobile data-center servers housed in shipping containers and uses both air and water cooling for artificial-intelligence storage and Bitcoin mining, according to Athlon Blockchain Technology.
City officials said they believe the property continued construction and operations without obtaining a required certificate of occupancy, although that had not initially been fully confirmed.
El Reno had previously issued a Stop Work Order involving Athlon BT in 2023.
After the August leak, city staff condemned the property and cited multiple alleged hazards.
An administrative hearing concerning the site was scheduled for late September following additional safety violations identified by the city.
The amount of water lost was substantial locally, although energy-policy analyst Chris Johnson argued that it should also be viewed in the context of statewide water consumption.
“With data centers, you’re often seeing really large numbers that are hard to put in context,” American Energy Leadership Institute President Chris Johnson told the DCNF. “In Oklahoma, for example, that amount of water accounts for about .002% of the total water usage in the state, or about 9 minutes of usage.”
Johnson said a failure involving millions of gallons warrants accountability but cautioned against treating a specific infrastructure breakdown as evidence that all data centers pose the same threat.
Athlon BT, El Reno Mayor Steve Jensen and City Manager Matt Sandidge did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Andy Masley, a writer who studies artificial intelligence and data-center water consumption, similarly cautioned against conflating water demand with water pollution.
“I think almost everyone’s mistaken in thinking that data centers pollute water,” Masley told the DCNF. “Every story we have about them polluting water is the result of construction runoff, which is bad but the normal result of building any large building.”
Cheyenne Dispute Centers on Wastewater Bacteria
Hundreds of miles northwest of El Reno, Cheyenne officials encountered a substantially different problem during construction of Meta’s data-center campus.
The Cheyenne Board of Public Utilities said the bacterium Cupriavidus gilardii was detected in wastewater during construction of the facility.
More than 800,000 gallons of wastewater were discharged into Cheyenne’s sewer system between January and March, according to BOPU records released in July.
The microorganism affected the municipal wastewater-treatment process and Cheyenne’s ability to produce reclaimed water used for irrigation.
“BOPU’s wastewater treatment facility was unable to treat and remove the bacteria from the wastewater stream. As a result, the presence of the bacteria adversely affected BOPU’s ability to produce reuse water for irrigation purposes,” the utility’s FAQ stated.
The utility fined Goat Systems, the limited liability company associated with Meta’s Cheyenne campus, $10,000.
Cheyenne also stopped accepting startup cooling-system wastewater from data centers into its sewer system.
BOPU has said the bacterium affected wastewater and the reuse system rather than Cheyenne’s public drinking-water supply.
Meta has challenged the enforcement action and questioned the reliability of some of the testing.
“Meta is committed to being a good neighbor in Cheyenne, which includes helping protect local water resources,” a Meta spokesperson told the DCNF.
The company said BOPU’s own documents showed no impact to the public or environment and argued that laboratory issues complicate the city’s findings.
“[T]he Board found no impact to the public or environment. The Board’s investigation also demonstrated false positives due to cross-contamination in its own laboratory, raising questions about the validity of the tests that led to this enforcement action in the first place,” the Meta spokesperson added.
Fortis Construction, the general contractor for Meta’s Cheyenne facility, has also disputed the contamination findings.
Sarah Hamaker, a Fortis spokeswoman, said testing commissioned by the company did not detect the organism.
“When initially alerted by the BOPU to a positive test, we began conducting a thorough investigation, which included repeated testing by independent environmental specialists, and have never found any trace of Cupriavidus gilardii,” Hamaker told the DCNF. “We have been in regular communication with the BOPU throughout this process and take our environmental obligations seriously.”
BOPU declined to comment further because litigation over the enforcement action remains pending.
Neither BOPU nor Fortis supplied their underlying test results to the DCNF for independent verification.
The dispute therefore involves both an established utility enforcement action and an active challenge by the companies involved.
Morgan County Residents Report Muddy Wells
In Georgia, concerns developed under different circumstances.
Residents of Morgan County began reporting muddy private well water after extensive construction activity around Stanton Springs in 2022.
The initial complaints emerged while electric-vehicle manufacturer Rivian was conducting major grading work for a planned factory, according to 11Alive reporting.
Meta also operates a major data center at Stanton Springs, where construction began in March 2018, and the technology company has increasingly become part of the broader dispute over development and local groundwater.
Resident Alan Jenkins described repeated problems after significant rainfall.
“Every time it rains with a decent amount of rainfall, we get mud that’s coming through in the groundwater and coming up here through the pump,” Jenkins told 11Alive News in November 2022.
Morgan County Board of Commissioners Chairman Blake McCormack said the timing of the complaints followed extensive earthmoving at the development site, while stopping short of assigning responsibility to Rivian.
“Seven million cubic yards of dirt got moved on the groundwater recharge area. I can’t say it was from Rivian,” McCormack told 11Alive News. “I just know we never got complaints before that happened. After that, we started having complaints.”
McCormack did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
The issue later reached Washington.
On May 20, Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez displayed a container of brown water during a congressional hearing while questioning Environmental Protection Agency water official Jessica Kramer.
“I have a jar right here. This is the current drinking water in Morgan county Georgia.”
Meta disputes accusations connecting its data-center operations to the residents’ groundwater complaints.
The company said it commissioned a study examining the area’s topography after residents raised concerns.
“When Stanton Springs residents raised concerns, we commissioned an expert study of the local topography, which showed that groundwater flows away from their properties, not toward them,” a Meta spokesperson told the DCNF. “And all construction and operations water came from the local utility, not groundwater.”
Meta also said it would contest legal claims it considers unsupported.
“While we are committed to being a good community partner, we will still defend ourselves from baseless lawsuits,” the spokesperson added.
The history of complaints is significant because muddy-well reports predated the latest attention on Meta and were associated by residents and officials with broader construction activity around Stanton Springs.
The available accounts therefore do not establish that Meta’s data center caused the well-water problems.
Cooling Methods Carry Different Water Tradeoffs
How much water a data center requires varies substantially depending on its design.
Some facilities rely heavily on air-based or dry cooling, which can sharply reduce direct water use but requires more electricity.
Others use evaporative cooling, particularly when outside temperatures make air cooling less effective.
Evaporative designs can lower the electrical load required for cooling but consume water in the process.
Shaolei Ren, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Riverside, said the debate cannot be separated from the condition of the water systems serving rapidly expanding industrial projects.
“Many public water systems are aging, so this leak is another reminder of how vulnerable water infrastructure can be,” Ren told the DCNF. “Even without data centers, these systems need continued investment and upgrades to reliably serve new industrial-scale demands and deliver clean water to homes, particularly as extreme weather places additional stress on water infrastructure.”
That underlying infrastructure challenge extends well beyond communities hosting data centers.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave U.S. drinking-water infrastructure a C-minus in its 2025 Infrastructure Report Card.
Nearly 20% of American water mains have already exceeded their useful lives, according to the organization.
Its detailed drinking-water assessment estimates that approximately 240,000 water-main breaks occur nationwide each year.
Data-center construction therefore is frequently arriving on top of infrastructure problems that existed long before the artificial-intelligence boom.
The additional industrial demand can make those weaknesses more visible, particularly in smaller communities that may lack the financial resources or spare capacity of major metropolitan systems.
Projects Can Also Finance Water Upgrades
Some cities and technology companies are attempting to address those challenges by tying new data-center development to investments in local infrastructure.
Johnson pointed to Kuna, Idaho, where Meta has committed roughly $100 million toward community and water infrastructure.
“Kuna is in a desert, so investments like these are huge for communities like theirs,” Johnson told the DCNF.
Another model has emerged in Quincy, Washington, one of the country’s longstanding data-center hubs.
Microsoft worked with the city to develop a dedicated system for treating and reusing water from data-center cooling operations.
The project offsets approximately 138 million gallons of groundwater demand each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Such projects demonstrate that data centers do not necessarily have to compete permanently with residential users for the same volume of fresh water.
Reclaimed-water systems, closed-loop cooling, wastewater treatment and infrastructure investments can significantly alter the equation.
But those solutions require planning, capital and regulatory oversight before industrial demand overwhelms existing systems.
That is the broader lesson emerging from El Reno, Cheyenne and Morgan County.
In Oklahoma, a failed private line at a computing and cryptocurrency facility released millions of gallons and exposed separate permitting and safety concerns.
In Wyoming, wastewater from construction of a major Meta campus led to a utility enforcement action that Meta and its contractor continue to dispute.
In Georgia, residents’ muddy wells have prompted investigations and national attention, although the cause remains contested and complaints began amid extensive construction associated with another major project.
None of the incidents proves that data centers inherently contaminate water supplies.
They do show that the rapid arrival of industrial-scale computing can collide with local infrastructure, construction practices and environmental concerns in ways that communities may not have anticipated.
Artificial intelligence is increasing demand for enormous computing facilities across the United States.
Those facilities need land, electricity and, depending on their cooling technology, potentially large quantities of water.
As they spread beyond established technology hubs into smaller American communities, the debate is increasingly moving beyond how much computing power a town can accommodate.
It is also becoming a question of how much stress its pipes, treatment plants, wells and water supplies can withstand — and who will pay to strengthen them when they cannot.
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