The Great Lakes are an abundant fresh water resource, but that water is not infinite, and a report from the Alliance for the Great Lakes is shining a light on massive water usage demands as more data centers move into the region.
The AI industry is booming and many hyper scale data centers need water to keep their servers cool. Helena Volser is the senior source water policy manager at the Alliance for the Great Lakes and says water usage from those data centers amounts to billions of gallons per year nationwide. She says the Great Lakes states are not prepared.
“The way that this region has been marketed specifically towards the data center industry is that we have abundant water resources available,” Volzer said. “The issue is, though, those water resources, though they appear abundant, are actually really finite.”
Volser says Great Lakes water is only replenished at a rate of about 1% per year from things like rain, snowmelt, and groundwater inflow. She says without policies limiting how much water these data centers can use, states surrounding the Great Lakes could be taking the lakes down a dangerous and unsustainable path.
Amid some controversy, Michigan City, Indiana just approved a new data center, and there has been talk of a data center planned for Benton Township.
