Google says Lincoln data center is "water positive" at state level, details local infrastructure steps

At a Resilient Lincoln roundtable, Anthony Giovannoni, Google’s water lead, outlined the company’s water stewardship framework and described specific infrastructure work in Lincoln. Giovannoni said Google’s pillars include replenishing more water than consumed by 2030, modernizing neighbor utilities, protecting at-risk watersheds and transparent annual reporting. "In 2025, our data centers in Nebraska consumed 732,000,000 gallons for that year," he said, and the company reported returning more than 7,000,000,000 gallons in 2025 across projects worldwide, including 914,000,000 gallons in Nebraska.

Giovannoni described a watershed mass-balance analysis for the Platte River Alluvial aquifer and said Lincoln’s supply was evaluated for consumptive evaporative cooling. He stated that, "based on this comprehensive analysis, we confirmed that the Platte River Basin is healthy and fully capable of supporting our evaporative cooling needs," and that the facility's maximum design intake would be about 0.3% of the total median Platte River flow. He noted the need to continue working with the city to ensure operations remain sustainable during low-flow and peak summer conditions.

To reduce impacts on municipal treatment capacity, Google is funding construction of a separate pipeline and a dedicated non-contact-cooling treatment facility that will be owned and operated by the city; Anthony said that arrangement will allow the non-contact cooling stream to be treated separately before discharge to Salt Creek and that Google will pay a volume-based fee for treatment. Giovannoni also cited projects such as meter replacement, water-loss reduction and aquifer storage and recovery as potential investments Google could support locally.

During Q&A, the city clarified that current master-planning and the numbers Google provided yield an estimate that the fully built campus would use approximately up to 6% of Lincoln's total water supply. Google emphasized it is exploring reuse options and that the Lincoln facility already has an allocation for reuse but that a gray-water distribution system would require separate municipal infrastructure.

City staff and Google committed to publishing a follow-up fact sheet answering resident questions and to continue coordinating on infrastructure to maintain water service for residents and the data center.