Lots of comments here suggesting that the water use is no big deal, but please note that Google is not using river water, they’re currently evaporating 29% of the municipal water, which comes from the aquifer, in a very dry region. The aquifer in question was being depleted prior to agriculture moving to river water and the local aluminum smelter shutting down, but it’s now healthy. Google’s planned use threatens to overdraw the aquifer. To offset Google’s use, the city plans to pump treated water into the aquifer.

More context for the curious: https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2021/11/why-does-g...

For anyone wondering, Google consumed 25% of water used in a city of 16000 people. This doesn't seem unreasonable.

I'm actually more interested in the linked article about the city suing the newspaper to withhold the usage data from the public record, apparently at the behest of Google.

I understand Google is a major employer in the area, but the city acting like Google's minion seems wrong.

The Dalles has a population of around 20k. This article is aimed at Oregon readers who might know that (or at least know it's not one of the few big cities in the state), but it's important context.

It would be nice if it could be cooled using water from the Columbia river instead of from the aquifer...

I only live like 3miles from the data center but am on a different water source. Still, with increasing drought conditions it might contribute to increased costs and availability in the future. I already pay $75/m for water...

I wish the article made a clearer case about what the supposed problem is. In the hydrographic context of The Dalles, 355 million gallons of water go by every couple of minutes. Given that fact, it must be that the datacenters are drawing on some local groundwater resource instead. But the article fails to tell us.

Just looked up where this is: https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Dalles+Google+Data+Cen...

That's right on a big river. Why are they using aquifers at all over there?

Edit: they are using the river. But why is this such a big issue? They evaporate some of it and dump the rest back in presumably?

Where does the water go after being used for cooling?

The amount of water being driven into the atmosphere will have interesting impact on the local vegetation.

I find it interesting this never comes up in these articles discussing the impact of DC footprint.

More alarming is the immense heat load coming from many other sites. A 50MW site is literally a space heater taking 50MW of power and convecting it into the atmosphere.

I cannot imagine how that can avoid significant environmental impact.

Seems like a waste of chlorine & flouride. Why Dalles & not say Hood River 24 mi downriver?

Thank goodness we exploit these resources to ensure sufficient advertising

I mean so what they just pump it through and send it back to the river probably cleaner then it originally was. What’s the problem? The water is not being wasted

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and. i bet the nsa uses more

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This article makes several disingenuous statements to paint an entirely false, emotion provoking narrative.

First: Google is not "consuming" water any more than a water wheel or dam turbine "consumes" water as it passes by in a river. This is an objectively absurd framing.

Second: Even if the water were consumed, which it isn't, 25% of a town of 16k is not a significant amount of consumption.

Third: This article talks about drought, which is absolutely irrelevant because the water isn't being consumed. The article can't directly say that google is culpable for water shortages, because they aren't, but it tries very hard to create this implication in the mind of lazy readers.

Delete your Gmail and save the planet!

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The Dalles is miniscule...