Explosive data center growth in the Chattahoochee River Basin

Within the last few months, public interest in data centers near the Chattahoochee River has grown considerably. Two recently proposed facilities – including one of the largest in Georgia – have attracted attention due to their demands on our water resources and electric infrastructure, physical size, and community and environmental impacts.

Data centers like those recently proposed in Coweta County are buildings filled with computer equipment to process internet traffic, facilitate cloud computing and artificial intelligence, enable music and video streaming, and store increasingly massive amounts of digital data like photos. CRK has identified approximately 100 data centers in the Chattahoochee River Basin, mostly in Cobb, Douglas, and Fulton counties.

Among the major challenges, today’s large data centers require massive amounts of energy and water for cooling systems to keep their computer equipment from overheating. However, we do not know with certainty how much energy and water because data center operators – and energy and water providers – are not required to report demand or usage.  Land disturbance and stormwater impacts – soil erosion and sedimentation in streams – during the construction and operational phases are anticipated. Impacts on quality of life like noise, light, and other nuisances are also real concerns.

We are tracking data center proposals as communities across the country organize to address data center construction and operation. And we will continue to collect water quality data, identify best management practices, and provide policy recommendations to decision makers to mitigate the impacts of data center proliferation in Georgia.

This article originally appeared in the Winter/Spring 2025 issue of RiverCHAT.