Georgia lawmakers hear warnings that data centers could strain water, power and local services

At a May 22 meeting of the Georgia General Assembly—s Special Committee on Energy and Water, nonprofit experts warned that the state—s rapid data center growth is consuming large quantities of fresh water and electricity, creating risks for drought resilience, local air quality and municipal services.

"Data centers use a lot of water," said Jeanette Gehr, director of Environment Georgia, in testimony to the committee. Amy Sharma, executive director of Science for Georgia, told lawmakers, "We need data centers, and we need AI," and urged lawmakers to require more transparency and stronger community protections so the facilities can be "good neighbors."

The testimony combined state- and national-level figures with local examples to underscore two central points: current public data on data-center water and power use are incomplete, and projected growth could materially affect water basins and electricity demand. Gehr said her group's scan of permits and reporting produced an estimate that existing and proposed data centers could be withdrawing roughly 68,500,000 gallons of water per day from Georgia rivers, a figure she described as an "best guess" based on available permit and reporting data. Gehr added that average individual centers in the group's review used about 9,000,000 gallons per day, with roughly 6,000,000 gallons being consumptive use that is not returned to the river.

Sharma provided separate industry-based estimates and repeated that the numbers her group presented are approximate because no single state registry tracks the facilities. She told the committee that her group's count identified roughly 97 existing data centers and 19 announced projects as of early 2025, and that a typical statewide build-out scenario could add some 14,000 megawatts of demand -- a quantity…