Fayette County,
Georgia, was telling residents to stop watering their lawns to conserve
water. The request came after homeowners in a nearby subdivision
reported unusually low water pressure, but when the county investigated,
it found the cause: a data center campus 20 miles south of Atlanta had
been drawing roughly 29 million gallons through two water connections
the county didn't know existed, Politico reported Saturday.
Quality
Technology Services (QTS), the Blackstone-owned developer behind the
615-acre Fayetteville campus, owed $147,474 in retroactive charges for
the unmetered consumption, but the county didn’t fine the company.
. . .QTS told Politico the 29 million gallons were consumed during
temporary construction activities, including concrete work, dust
control, and site preparation. The company markets a "closed-loop"
cooling system for its data centers, which recirculates the same water
rather than drawing from the municipal supply. Once operational, QTS
said its facilities would only require water for domestic needs like
bathrooms and kitchens.
- However, the discrepancy between QTS’s stated and actual water usage remained undetected for months, with Politico reporting
that the county’s water system director, Vanessa Tigert, attributed the
oversight to a procedural error during the county's transition to a
cloud-based metering system.
NOTE THIS >
Tigert told Politico that
her department has a single employee handling both inspections and plan
reviews, saying,
“... we don’t have enough staff. We can’t keep staff.”
- QTS and the county disagreed on how long the water went unmetered,
withTigert estimating about four months and QTS saying 9 to 15 months.
Despite the unauthorized connections, Fayette County opted not to fine
the company.
"They're our largest customer, and we have to be partners,"
Tigert said.
"It's called customer service."
> The incident came to
light last week after a Fayette County resident obtained the utility's
May 2025 letter to QTS through a public records request.
> Fayetteville
had already moved to restrict data center growth
before this, with the city council banning new data centers in every
zoning district earlier this year, adopting Ordinance 26-0-12.
>A
separate proposal from developer Crow Holdings was denied by the city's
planning commission in January, and the company withdrew its appeal in
March.
Georgia's Public Service Commission also froze Georgia Power's base
rates through 2028, specifically to prevent data centers from shifting
electricity costs to residential customers. The state is currently
experiencing moderate to severe drought, and Gov. Brian Kemp declared a
state of emergency last month over wildfires. Georgia hosts more than
200 data center facilities.
The QTS campus is projected to
generate $150 million to $200 million annually in property tax revenue,
according to the city. Fayetteville is one of at least 50 cities across
the U.S. that currently have active bans on new data center construction, with four adopting permanent prohibitions, according to the U.S. Data Center Moratorium Tracker.
