Georgians outraged after data center drains 30M gallons of water amid drought conditions: report
Residents of a suburban Georgia town are furious after they discovered a massive new data center had guzzled up 30 million gallons of water without initially paying for it – leaving members of the populace with weak water pressure during a drought.Georgians living in Annelise Park, a mansion-packed neighborhood in Fayetteville, which has a roughly 20,000 population, noticed last year that their water pressure was unusually weak, according to a Politico report.A county investigation found a nearby 6.6 million-square-foot data center project by Quality Technology Services, a Blackstone-owned developer, was to blame, according to the publication.Two industrial-scale water hookups had been connected to the campus – but one was installed without alerting the local county utility, and the other was not linked to QTS’s account, so neither were being charged, according to a May 15, 2025 letter from the Fayette County water system to QTS.QTS owed nearly $150,000 for draining more than 29 million gallons of water, the letter stated.That’s enough to fill 44 Olympic-size swimming pools, or roughly three times the amount used daily to water lawns across the entire country.The developer told The Post it paid all retroactive charges as soon as it was notified by the county.
The county’s water system claimed the billing lapse was caused by a procedural slip-up, adding that the data center’s meters are now fully integrated and tracked.But tensions heated up after local officials encouraged Fayetteville residents to cut back on watering their lawns amid a state of emergency from Georgia Gov.Brian Kemp, as Georgia faces state-wide droughts and the worst wildfire outbreaks in years.James Clifton, an attorney who is running for a seat on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners, obtained the 2025 letter to QTS and posted it on Facebook last week, prompting outrage from residents.On Sunday, he posted a photo that appeared to show sprinklers watering the lawns near the QTS ...