THE LAUNCH DOCK

Water Is Where the Story Becomes Permanent

Land can be rezoned.

Buildings can be demolished.

Leadership can change.

Water cannot.

Once groundwater is depleted, contaminated, or redirected at scale, there is no reset button. Aquifers recharge slowly—sometimes over centuries—and damage often becomes visible only after it is irreversible. Yet in modern economic development, water is frequently treated as an engineering variable rather than a finite public trust.

That framing works for investors.

It leaves communities carrying the risk.

Why Data Centers Are a Water Story First

Data centers are often described as clean, quiet, and technologically neutral.

They are none of those things when it comes to water.

Large-scale data centers require continuous cooling to prevent server failure and equipment degradation. According to the Brookings Institution, a single data center can consume 300,000 gallons of water per day, while larger hyperscale facilities may use millions of gallons daily, rivaling the water demand of small cities (Brookings Institution, 2023).

Even facilities marketed as “water-efficient” still depend on:

On-site groundwater wells

Redundant municipal or emergency water access

Stormwater diversion systems

Industrial-scale wastewater treatment

This is not speculative.

Water is foundational to data center operation, particularly as artificial intelligence and cloud computing dramatically increase computing density and heat output.

Private Wells Change the Accountability Equation

When projects rely on private groundwater wells instead of municipal water systems, a critical shift occurs:

Oversight decreases

Public reporting becomes limited or fragmented

Long-term monitoring responsibilities become unclear

Enforcement is distributed across agencies with narrow jurisdiction

The burden of proof shifts to residents experiencing harm

Private wells are legal.

They are also far less transparent than public systems.

Research from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory confirms that water-use reporting for data centers is inconsistent nationwide, making cumulative impacts difficult to track or regulate (Shehabi et al., 2022).

When private wells support industrial-scale demand, risk is no longer hypothetical—it becomes structural.

What Gets Modeled—and What Often Doesn’t

Water impact modeling typically focuses on:

Immediate availability

Engineering feasibility

Compliance with permitting thresholds

What is often excluded from public-facing analysis:

Cumulative aquifer drawdown over decades

Impacts on neighboring agricultural and residential wells

Seasonal stress during drought cycles

Long-term recharge rates under climate variability

Full buildout impacts when expansion phases are already planned

Studies from Ceres, a nonprofit focused on sustainability risk, show that phased approvals frequently understate total water demand, even when long-term expansion is known (Ceres, 2023).

That is not conservative planning.

It is selective framing.

Why Rural Communities Bear the Risk

Data centers do not choose rural locations by chance.

They choose them because:

Water rights face fewer competing users

Monitoring infrastructure is thinner

Public awareness arrives later

Regulatory scrutiny is less visible

Opposition is easier to fragment

Ceres estimates that data center water use could increase by as much as 870% as AI-driven demand accelerates, intensifying stress in regions that already lack robust oversight (Ceres, 2023).

In rural regions, a single industrial user can permanently alter groundwater dynamics—without triggering the scrutiny that would occur in urban systems.

That imbalance is not accidental.

It is strategic.

The Quiet Transfer of Long-Term Cost

Public messaging emphasizes:

Job creation

Tax base expansion

Infrastructure investment

But water infrastructure tells a different story.

When aquifers decline, wells fail, or treatment systems become overwhelmed, costs shift to:

Farmers and agricultural producers

Homeowners relying on private wells

Municipal systems forced to compensate

Taxpayers funding remediation

Future administrations that never approved the project

The Environmental Law Institute notes that water-intensive industries frequently externalize long-term water risk, leaving communities responsible for mitigation decades later (Environmental Law Institute, 2024).

This is where “economic development” quietly becomes resource extraction.

Why Speed Is the Problem

Water systems demand patience.

Development timelines do not.

Accelerated approvals compress modeling, substitute assumptions for data, and defer long-term scenarios until after commitments are made. Once momentum builds, questioning water demand becomes politically inconvenient.

The most important question is rarely answered publicly:

What happens when demand exceeds projections?

That question slows timelines.

And slowing timelines threatens deals.

What Still Hasn’t Been Disclosed

At this stage, residents are justified in asking:

How much water will be drawn annually at full buildout?

Which aquifer is being tapped—and how quickly does it recharge?

Who monitors drawdown over time?

What triggers intervention if neighboring wells are impacted?

Who pays for mitigation or failure?

What happens if expansion outpaces modeling assumptions?

These are not technical curiosities.

They are governance obligations.

What Communities Can Do—Before It’s Too Late

Water decisions are difficult to reverse—but not impossible to interrogate.

Residents and business owners can:

Request water impact studies under the Missouri Sunshine Law

Ask whether modeling reflects full buildout, not phased approval

Demand monitoring and mitigation plans

Clarify liability for groundwater failure

Insist on public reporting—not just compliance

Water does not respond to press releases.

It responds to extraction.

Methodology

This article draws from peer-reviewed research, institutional reports, environmental policy analysis, and economic development documentation from the Brookings Institution, Ceres, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Environmental Law Institute. No private individuals are named or accused. Readers are encouraged to review primary sources and public records independently.

Closing: You Can’t Refill an Aquifer With Promises

Data centers can be dismantled.

Infrastructure agreements can be renegotiated.

Aquifers do not recover on investor timelines.

Once water becomes collateral damage, accountability arrives too late. If development is truly responsible, it should withstand scrutiny where it matters most.

Water is that place.

In solidarity,

Lyndsay LaBrier

Merchant Ship Collective

The Launch Dock

References

Brookings Institution. (2023). AI, data centers, and water use. https://www.brookings.edu

Ceres. (2023). Drained by data: The cumulative impact of data centers on regional water stress. https://www.ceres.org

Environmental Law Institute. (2024). Water risk, infrastructure development, and long-term liability. https://www.eli.org

Shehabi, A., Masanet, E., Lei, N., et al. (2022). United States data center energy and water use trends. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. https://datacenters.lbl.gov