California bill would require builders to release how much water data facilities use

By John Ramos

As California’s population grows, the pressure increases on its finite natural resources. And one of those, water, is the subject of some concern, with the increase in data generation in the state.  

The data facilities use a lot of water, but at this point, officials don’t know how much. New legislation aims to find out.

Santa Clara isn’t just the home of the 49ers; it’s also where the internet lives. The city has 55 huge data centers already in operation, with three more on the way.  While that takes an awful lot of energy, it also uses water. 

Mike Kiparsky, director of the Wheeler Water Institute at the UC Berkeley School of Law, said the need is about to explode with the advent of artificial Intelligence.

“The data centers that we see now will just multiply,” he said. “And their need to cool their servers will multiply along with them.”

Water runs through the machines to keep them cool, and how much they use isn’t public information. 

But now a bill has passed the Legislature that would shed a little light on that. Assembly Bill 93 would require builders to project how much water their data facility will use before opening and how much they use annually while in operation.

“Without reporting, there’s no way to know how much the 300-plus data centers in California, how much water they use…where and what the impacts are,” said Kiparsky.  “Without this information, it’s very difficult for local decision makers, such as the mayor of a small town, to understand the ramifications for their water systems of green-lighting a project that might have other benefits for their communities, even if the impacts could be hidden from them.”

It should be noted that the data centers in Santa Clara use recycled water for their cooling applications.  

But Kiparsky said even recycled water is a resource that could be used for other purposes if not for the data centers. 

For various reasons, the facilities are usually clustered together and they tend to be in places where water is often scarce, like California, Texas and Arizona.  

A business sustainability company called Ceres released a study examining the effects of data centers on the area around Phoenix.

“The statistics were pretty staggering,” said Kirsten James, Senior Program Director for Water. “We found that in some of the water basins in that region, we saw an increase in water stress by as much as 32%.”

The study found that the projected growth of data center water use in the Phoenix area will increase by 870% from the current 385 million gallons to more than 3.7 billion gallons per year.  That’s the kind of information that AB93 hopes to provide.

“You know, similar to this piece of legislation, we need more information,” said James. “Companies and their investors need this information as well to really disclose, so we can understand what are the impacts.”

Kiparsky said local communities need to weigh the immediate economic benefits of welcoming in a data center with the impacts on the area’s water resources. Requiring companies to disclose their consumption is just the first step in helping local governments as they scramble to keep up with the breakneck speed of technology.

“We try our best to anticipate and understand what’s already happening and anticipate what’s coming next,” Kiparsky said.  “So that we can be a step ahead or at least not too many steps behind.”