It's just an emotional witch hunt at this point. I get it, societal implications of AI are scary, but protest _that_ instead of cosplaying like an environmentalist.
The general public really has no barometer for judging industrial scale numbers. Anything "million" to the general public is interpreted as "infinity"
https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2022/12/the-dalles...
> The case represented a major test of Oregon public records law. After The Oregonian/OregonLive requested Google’s records last year, The Dalles sued the news organization to prevent the information’s release. It argued Google’s water use was a “trade secret” exempt from Oregon disclosure requirements.
https://www.rcfp.org/dalles-google-oregonian-settlement/
> Updates: Following the settlement reached between The Oregonian and the city of The Dalles, a Google spokesperson told the Associated Press that the tech company would no longer seek to protect its site-level water-use numbers as a trade secret at any of its data centers nationwide. And after the city turned over Google’s water-use data, The Oregonian reported that the tech company’s water use “nearly tripled in the past five years, and the company’s data centers now consume more than a quarter of all the water used in the city.”
> ...
> The Oregonian first requested records about Google’s water usage in The Dalles last September. But city officials denied the request submitted by business reporter Mike Rogoway, arguing that the records are “trade secrets” exempt from disclosure under the Oregon Public Records Law.
> The newspaper decided to challenge the city’s denial, asking the district attorney for Wasco County to weigh in. After reviewing the city’s rejection, the district attorney sided with The Oregonian, concluding that the city failed to meet its burden to show that Google’s water usage is a trade secret and ordering the city to disclose the requested records.
---
In the Nebraska one... https://www.1011now.com/2026/09/30/more-questions-than-answe...
> The Google Data Center in Lincoln, named Agate LLC, claimed their electricity usage and water usage were trade secret information, citing Neb. Rev. State §§ 81-1527; 84-712.05 and NAC TITLE 115, CH. 2. In fact, Google did this for all three data centers, including their sites in Omaha and Papillion.
This isn't only Google claiming this...
https://midwestadvocates.org/legal-victory-judge-orders-rele...
> In an oral ruling delivered during an August 17 hearing, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke found that the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin (PSC) acted unlawfully when it denied a public records request seeking unredacted documents related to electrical load projections at Meta’s Beaver Dam data center. The PSC defended its refusal to release the information, claiming it was a trade secret. Judge Ehlke, however, was not convinced. He ruled that the information did not qualify as a trade secret because it lacked independent economic value, and he ordered its release.
I would urge scrolling down to "The Dalles, Oregon" to consider how the water is being used.
> Plumes of steam rise above our cooling towers at our data center at The Dalles, Oregon. When you can see the water vapor — meaning humidity and temperatures are low — our cooling towers are at their most efficient.
They may recycle some of their cooling capacity, but they eventually evaporate it.
Voluntary water restrictions are currently in place.
https://www.drought.gov/location/97058 has the historical drought conditions. They've had extreme drought conditions in 2022 (D4 conditions) when the article was written.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/wri811108 (from 1983)
> The most productive aquifer in the Columbia River Basalt Group is The Dalles Ground Water Reservoir, a permeable zone of fractured basalt about 25 to 30 square miles in extent that underlies the city of The Dalles. During the late 1950's and mid-1960's, withdrawals of 15,000 acre-feet per year or more caused water levels in the aquifer to decline sharply. Pumpage had diminished to about 5,000 acre-feet per year in 1979 and water levels have stabilized, indicating that ground water recharge and discharge, including the pumping, are in balance.
The aquifer is still recovering. The Dalles is considered an arid area and the drought from 2014 to present isn't helping.
Note the "when it got to 5,000 acre feet it was in balance"... the data center in The Dalles draws 1 million gallons per day - that's 1,200 acre feet per year.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/UQgwP9EqUcLhs7JR7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dalles,_Oregon
> The Dalles is usually classified as a semiarid (Köppen BSk) climate region. However, it has some characteristics of the midlatitude oceanic climate that dominates west of the Cascade Mountains, combined with seasonal precipitation patterns very similar to those found in Mediterranean climates. The city's location in the eastern Columbia Gorge results in the presence of numerous microclimates within a few miles of town. To the immediate west, the winters are significantly wetter, and summers are significantly cooler. In contrast, upland locations to the south are significantly cooler in all seasons. The generally warm and dry summers near town make it the ideal climate for the numerous Bing cherry orchards in the area.
> The summer season runs from mid-June through early September and is quite warm by Pacific Northwest standards; however, summer weather often oscillates between intense heat waves and much cooler and windier periods. Except for the occasional sporadic thunderstorm, there is almost no summer rainfall.
Especially if the resource is drinkable water.
We have real environmental problems, like excess CO2 in the air and forever-chemicals in our biosphere. The narrative must stay with those material issues and not be diverted by trivia.
Evaporated water becomes drinkable water again but not necessarily in the place it was consumed.
And don’t forget that consumption comes on top of the already existing consumption, so at some point you could reach the point of too much consumption. The straw that broke the camels back. There is a reason for that saying.
Agricultural consumption is already a problem but raising the consumption doesn’t help.
Like with CO2, more is more
These arguments about data center water use are so dumb they distract from actual water conservation efforts too.