EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency will not establish nationwide environmental requirements for the ever-growing data center industry, leaving water use, cooling system design, and air quality decisions to individual states and communities.
Speaking at the POLITICO Energy Summit, Zeldin argued that states and local governments are better suited for developing environmental standards and regulations due to the many differences in water availability, energy infrastructure, and air quality across different regions.
It has long been expected that the EPA would adopt this hands-off approach as the administration believes new data centers are crucial for national security and economic growth. But states across the country have been busy developing standards in place of federal rules. More than 30 states have passed legislation to regulate data centers and require more transparency from their operators.
Zeldin and the EPA remain confident that companies will voluntarily address water usage on their own. He pointed to the adoption of closed-loop cooling designs, which use significantly less water than traditional evaporative systems. Large technology companies, such as Google and Amazon, have begun to address concerns about their water usage with plans to expand their water re-use programs and reduce overall freshwater withdraw from aquifers.
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Last year, NGWA formed a task force to address the impact of data centers on groundwater and provide guidance for their development. The task force focuses on groundwater availability, transparency in water use, and best practices for siting and operating data centers in ways that protect long-term water resources.
NGWA underscored the critical role groundwater professionals play in helping communities manage water resources responsibly as data centers expand across the United States with the Association’s latest position paper and a three-part series in its monthly trade magazine, Water Well Journal.
The position paper notes that data center growth must be planned and managed in a manner that protects groundwater resources that are relied upon by communities and ecosystems. It adds that policymakers, regulators, and data center developers need to incorporate groundwater sustainability into siting, permitting, and operational decisions, including clear disclosure of water sources and use.
Both the position paper and three-part article series can be found on the Associations' website dedicated to data centers titled Issue: Data Centers and Groundwater.
NGWA will host a members-only webinar, Data Centers and Groundwater: What NGWA Members Need to Know, on August 5. Click here to register.