Data center wastewater isn't causing the same problem everywhere - it just keeps causing problems.
In Wyoming, Meta's contractor Goat Systems discharged 801,000 gallons of wastewater from the company's 960-acre Cheyenne construction site into local sewers. Regulators found a drug-resistant bacterium, Cupriavidus gilardii, in the water and pulled two treatment plants offline for a multi-month cleanup. Officials also worried residents could inhale contaminated droplets if the water was used for irrigation. Goat Systems is now appealing the decision to stop accepting the site's wastewater.
The other three cases look nothing like Wyoming's. Enforcement actions in Virginia cite wetland and stormwater violations, including one construction site whose runoff flooded a nearby residential area twice. Near Lake Seneca, New York, a data center that switched from crypto mining to AI workloads reportedly discharges water at up to 108F directly into the lake, bypassing treatment plants entirely - a practice Seneca Lake Guardian says risks fish kills and algae blooms; operator Vulcan Infrastructure and Power says it complies with environmental law. In Georgia, newly approved data centers can draw from the Chattahoochee River, but Chattahoochee Riverkeeper says there's no public data on how much water is taken or what, including potential PFAS, goes back in.
The common thread isn't overflowing treatment plants - it's that almost nobody outside these companies knows what's actually in the water. Many treatment plants were never built to filter industrial contaminants like heavy metals or PFAS, closed-loop cooling systems still need periodic pipe flushes that go straight into sewers, and much of this construction is happening in drought-prone regions where water was already scarce.
A company saying it "complies with all relevant environmental laws" doesn't mean much when regulators and watchdogs can't get basic numbers on discharge volume or content in the first place.