Mastodawn

A data center drained 30M gallons of water unnoticed — until residents complained about low water pressure

Residents in Fayetteville, Georgia, noticed low water pressure last year. The utility discovered two unaccounted-for water connections at one of the nation’s largest data center campuses.

“We get this notification from Fayette County water system saying you need to stop watering your lawns to help conserve water."

https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988

A data center drained 30M gallons of water unnoticed — until residents complained about low water pressure

Residents in Fayetteville, Georgia, noticed low water pressure last year. The utility discovered two unaccounted-for water connections at one of the nation’s largest data center campuses.

Politico

Gerry McGovern May 10

How the data centers operate. Always in secrecy.

"When the county utility investigated, officials discovered two industrial-scale water hookups feeding a data center campus located 20 miles south of downtown Atlanta. One water connection had been installed without the utility’s knowledge, and the other was not linked to the company’s account and therefore wasn’t being billed."

https://www.flyingpenguin.com/datacenter-sprawl-pushes-georgia-into-dangerous-water/

In other places, they don't have to steal the water: they get it for free.

Datacenter Sprawl Pushes Georgia Into Dangerous Waters | flyingpenguin

Yimby Earth May 10

@gerrymcgovern
Sounds to me like the utility ought to just cut the connection instantly and charge the owner with sabotage.

@YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern Criminal charges for management authorizing this would also make sense.

Paul Schoe May 10

Criminal charges for management?

Making directors responsible for things that they allow to happen in their company?

What an odd approach.

Haven't you learned the first rule of unregulated capitalism?

You can fine a company, but you can never criminally charge the directors whose actions resulted in the criminal actions of their companies. /s

#Capitalism #Unregulated #UnregulatedCapitalism

@YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern

AKingsbury May 10

@paulschoe @J2 @YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern

...do any of you really imagine that these datacenters are not subject to regulation?

Paul Schoe May 10

@AlexanderKingsbury

My post is not about regulation.

My post is about whether any persons are being held legally responsible when a company does intentionally and purposefully not follow regulations.

@J2 @YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern

AKingsbury May 10

@paulschoe @J2 @YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern

"Haven't you learned the first rule of unregulated capitalism?"

"My post is not about regulation."

Hmm.

Paul Schoe May 10

@AlexanderKingsbury

My sentence clearly states that is is about 'the first rule of unregulated capitalism?'

The post is not about any regulations themselves.

Hmm?

AKingsbury May 10

I never said it was about any regulations in and of themselves. But you complain about this "unregulated capitalism" in the context of datacenters, which is nonsensical. I challenge anyone to point to a single example, one, of a datacenter that actually exists and is not subject to regulations of some kind.

Just one.

Paul Schoe May 10

@AlexanderKingsbury

I talk about my 'First Rule of unregulated capitalism'.

If you are not able to conclude from that sentence that I am not talking about regulations themselves, then I am sorry.

Maybe my English is too limited to explain that I am not talking about regulations datacenters are subjected to.

Enjoy the day.

AKingsbury May 10

Please feel free to let me know if you ever come up with any actual defense for your claims.

@AlexanderKingsbury @paulschoe

What a disingenuous argument as a data center wreaks havoc on the local water system. The difference between poorly regulated and not regulated is irrelevant at this point. The data center was literally stealing water, to the tune of $150,000 with a secret connection to the water supply.

That said the county is Republican so they're getting what they voted for, maybe they should make better choices.

AKingsbury May 10

@HakeemG @paulschoe

"What a disingenuous argument"

Hardly. If someone wants to call something unregulated when it is regulated, they are simply wrong. If you want to call pointing out the truth "disingenuous", you do you; I certainly don't expect better, given our previous encounters.

Paul Schoe May 10

@AlexanderKingsbury @HakeemG

I talk about 'unregulated capitalism' where managers are no longer held legally responsible for their actions.

Nowhere do I say that the situation itself is unregulated. On the contrary, if I talk about 'criminal actions' then I implicitly state that the situation is regulated. If there was no regulation, there would be nothing criminal taking place.

I get the impression that you are of the opinion that repeating an argument often enough, will make it true.

AKingsbury May 10

@paulschoe @HakeemG

No, it's more of an assertion that calling something unregulated when there are regulations that apply to it is inaccurate.

@AlexanderKingsbury @paulschoe

It's unregulated buddy, they literally stole $150,000 of water and destroyed the local water supply. Wake up and join the rest of us in reality.

AKingsbury May 10

@HakeemG @paulschoe

Don't worry; I didn't imagine you had developed an appreciation for facts or honesty.

Have a nice day.

@AlexanderKingsbury @paulschoe

A man asks a woman, "Would you sleep with me for a million pounds?"The woman replies, "Why, yes, I would."

The man then asks, "Would you sleep with me for ten shillings?"The woman indignantly replies, "Certainly not! What do you take me for, a prostitute?"

The man replies, "We've already established that. Now we're just haggling over the price".

bewilderbeast23 May 10

@AlexanderKingsbury @paulschoe @J2 @YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern All of us.

AKingsbury May 10

@bewilderbeast23 @paulschoe @J2 @YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern

Well, I won't imagine you actually speak for anyone else unless and until I see them saying you do, but for you, if you imagine these sites are unregulated, you are deeply ignorant. Heck, just zoning laws apply; this is very low hanging fruit.

bewilderbeast23 May 10

@AlexanderKingsbury @paulschoe @J2 @YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern You really dont think billionaire corporations get special treatment, 'blind eye,' exemptions and tax breaks, etc from those regulations?
Call me paranoid, call me biased, but I think they do .

AKingsbury May 10

@bewilderbeast23 @paulschoe @J2 @YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern

I never said anything of the sort. Of course wealthy groups and individuals can and often do get treated differently.

Mother Bones May 10

@YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern

Not only did they not do that, they didn't even fine the data center.

Krzysztof Sakrejda May 10

@_L1vY_ @YimbyEarth @gerrymcgovern that's deranged...

bewilderbeast23 May 10

@gerrymcgovern They're entitled to steal from the little people cos theyre doing a really important thing (keeping up with other billionaires' stealing).

Eric R. Scott May 10

@gerrymcgovern the data center in Pima county isn't even built yet and they are already taking water that isn't theirs to take. https://www.tucsonagenda.com/p/project-blue-s-water-trickery

Project Blue’s water trickery

Tucson slams the backdoor shut … ICE stays mum … And they got a little carried away.

Tucson Agenda

SaanichGuy 🇨🇦🇨🇦May 10

@gerrymcgovern capitalism destroys the environment

Illegally taking water should mean heavy fines and jail time for CEOs

No hiding behind corporations

John Abbe (aka Slow)May 10

@SaanichGuy @gerrymcgovern That sort of thing, ecological crimes that 'pierce' the corporate veil, is called ecocide. More and more legislators have started taking it seriously. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecocide

In Brazil: https://ecojurisprudence.org/initiatives/brazil-ecocide-law-2023/

Curious what England's Greens will do if they continue to gain influence there. And how this could intersect with expanding #transformativejustice

#ecocide #ecology #environment #law #legislation #crime #justice #nature #life #habitat #water

Ecocide - Wikipedia

Nu Modular May 10

@gerrymcgovern Expect more and more disintegration, across more and more #VitalInfrastructure as the #TechBros and #FossilFuels abusers take more control.

Erik Ellestad May 10

@gerrymcgovern The attitude of move fast and break things, aka it's easier to ask for forgiveness (pay a relatively tiny fine) than permission (be tied up for years in environmental reviews, planning commissions, etc.) is rampant in tech and has now moved from software development to infrastructure.

sOlOw-NH May 10

Thank goodness for the affluent!

"Outrage started bubbling up last year when residents of an affluent subdivision named Annelise Park in Fayetteville, Georgia, noticed their water pressure was unusually low"

Gerry McGovern May 10

@solownh That's it. And that's why the data centers try to target the poor areas and the rural communities, where they think they can get away with anything.

The more you look at this Western-made, high-tech society, the more disgusting and depraved it becomes. But if you stay on the surface, all you see are these shiny, addictive conveniences.

UpLateGeek May 10

@solownh @gerrymcgovern yes, thank goodness for the affluent, as opposed to the data centre operators, who are effluent.

EndicottRoad59 May 10

@gerrymcgovern And yet the owners of the data center don't care. They only see profit numbers and plan to buy their next luxury car or private jet.

@gerrymcgovern
thirty million gallons. sounds like a lot. is that 1 swimming pool, 10 swimming pools, 100 swimming pools, 100000000000 swimming pools?
#metric

Burnt Veggies May 10

@OneInterestingFact @gerrymcgovern it depends on the size of the swimming pool. My parents had a smallish residential pool installed in our backyard when I was growing up. It took about 30,000 gallons to fill from empty.

Tom Brandis May 10

@OneInterestingFact @gerrymcgovern around 45 olympic swimming pools
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic-size_swimming_pool

Olympic-size swimming pool - Wikipedia

@OneInterestingFact 30 million gallons is roughly 45 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The future billionaires envision is a deserted Earth with cooled data centers, and people dying of thirst. A mix of Terminator and Mad Max.

#EpsteinClass #Billionaires #dystopia #BillionairesApocalypse #DataCenters

@JackMexa4 It keeps reminding me of "Circuitry Man".

@roknrol @gerrymcgovern

I haven’t watched it. But I will.

@JackMexa4 @gerrymcgovern It's future dystopia from the 90's...have booze handy 😃

Melancholic Mediocrity

@gerrymcgovern I wonder what would happen to residential customers if they installed multiple, unbilled connections to the utility system

Rhinos Worry Me May 10

@LibertyForward1 @gerrymcgovern

@gerrymcgovern There was an interesting analysis of the article on Bluesky.

https://bsky.app/profile/andymasley.bsky.social/post/3mlhq73tovk2i

Andy Masley (@andymasley.bsky.social)

When the utility noticed the problem, they sent the data center a retroactive bill for all the water, for $147,474 covering ~29M gallons. The data center paid it. That's all that happened.

Bluesky Social

@joschi Nothing out of that man's writing is interesting. He's an Effective Altruist on big techs payroll.

Literally a speaker at "Data Center World" conference. https://schedule.datacenterworld.com/speaker/masley-andy/82093

Andy Masley | Speakers | Data Center World

Andy Masley from Effective Altruism DC was a speaker at Data Center World 2026.

Data Center World

disorderlyf May 10

@gerrymcgovern And this is why I never believed a word of this stupid greenwashing people were doing for "AI". The WATER UTILITY didn't even know about this. But it's okay because a single prompt only uses a teaspoon of water? You really believe that after a stunt like this? What else are they lying about? Does just the prompting actually use orders of magnitude more electricity than we thought too? Is the watercooling actually doing fuck and all to reduce electricity? Or did they bullshit about that too.

Mother Bones May 10

"...Tigert defended the utility’s decision to not levy a fine.

'They’re our largest customer, and we have to be partners,' she said. 'It’s called customer service.' "

Gerry McGovern May 10

@_L1vY_ a poor person steals some bread from a supermarket and we'll see what sort of customer service they receive.

Mother Bones May 10

@gerrymcgovern Exactly 😤

Paul Wermer, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 May 10

@_L1vY_ @gerrymcgovern
☝️☝️☝️Sort of a WTAF statement, isn't it?☝️☝️☝️

eliterrell May 10

@_L1vY_ @gerrymcgovern But supposedly after construction they’ll be at five households equivalent of water usage, if you believe that. So not a big customer at all.

Mother Bones May 10

@eliterrell @gerrymcgovern

Simultaneously a vast, important business partner AND a harmless smol bean little customer.

Krzysztof Sakrejda May 10

@_L1vY_ @gerrymcgovern how is this bootlicking mentality instilled in people?

Knightmare May 10

@gerrymcgovern you know what is ironic, they don't even need water to cool them, there are other ways.

Justin Derrick May 10

@LanceJZ @gerrymcgovern Heat doesn’t disappear. The water isn’t used for direct cooling, it’s used to cool the evaporator, which cools the liquid that goes back into the chiller before getting sent back to the equipment.

Knightmare May 11

@JustinDerrick @gerrymcgovern you don't understand, it does not need to be that way. I'm not saying that is not how they are doing it.

Stella C May 10

@gerrymcgovern Theft

Jennifer Moore 😷May 10

Yikes.