Water Ledger Virginia

Virginia · Data centers and water

What Would a Data Center Use?

Find your city, town or county, then build a data center below. You'll see how much water it could use, compared with homes and golf courses, and what to ask about it.

1

Where do you live?

    2

    Build a data center

    How is it cooled?

    Where does its water come from?

    More options
    Wastewater goes to

    3

    What would it use?

    On an average day it would take

    …

    5

    When it rains

    Roofs and parking lots send rain to the nearest stream fast, carrying sediment, phosphorus and road salt with it. Here is the land today and with the data center.

    Existing land use

    6

    Before and after

    Before: your place today. After: with this data center. Built from the steps above.

    More: goes upLess: goes down

    Want every range, chart and source, every stream listing and the sewer plant numbers? The detailed calculator has the same estimates in full.Open the detailed calculator

    See something wrong or out of date? Tell us.

    Virginia proposals

    What's been proposed

    Projects that have come up at public meetings or in the local news. If the company or the utility has put out a water number, it's listed with where it came from. Open a project to compare that number with our estimate.

    See the proposals on a map · Moratoria.

    Who decides

    Three different bodies decide the water questions

    Your township or city

    Rezoning, special land use and site plans. Can attach conditions, adopt a moratorium, and write water standards into its ordinance.

    Your water and sewer utility

    Whether it can serve the project within its plant capacity and wholesale contracts, and what the site may discharge to the sewer.

    The state (EGLE)

    Large withdrawals from wells (registration at 100,000 gallons a day, permits above 2 million), direct discharges, wetlands and floodplains.

    Methods and sources

    How the numbers are made

    The model turns the computers' heat into evaporation, hour by hour, using 30 years of weather from eight places in Michigan and the methods in published studies. We don't know each project's exact design, so every estimate is run 200 times with different settings. The big number is the middle result, rounded; the range covers the middle 80%. A "home" is a family using 300 gallons a day (EPA), and a golf course is the middle of 453 Michigan courses reporting to the state in 2025. The methods page has the details, every source, the checks against real data, and a log of changes.

    The calculator covers the campus's water, electricity and runoff on the site. It does not count new water or sewer connections, power lines, access roads or other construction beyond the site.

    Corrections

    Suggest a correction

    If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us. We read every one, and any change goes in the log on the methods page with the date and the reason.

    Looking at a specific proposal? Northline Hydrology reviews what large new water users mean for local water and streams.

    Visit Northline Hydrology