Data Centers Are Invading Water-Stressed California Communities — And Nobody's Telling You How Much They're Drinking

Data center builders don't tell the public how much water they use — and the industry is encroaching into water-stressed and vulnerable communities across California, according to a new report by the think tank Next10 and researchers at Santa Clara University.

The report finds that planned data centers — the physical backbone of artificial intelligence — are spreading to regions reliant on overtapped groundwater and strained surface water, with potentially major effects in the Central Valley and Imperial Valley. Yet a patchwork of state, federal and local policies allows data center operators to avoid publicly disclosing their actual water use.

"We have this huge build out, and we have very little data."
— Irina Raicu, Internet Ethics Program, Santa Clara University

Murky Water Use

Researchers went looking for environmental impact reports for California's data centers — documents meant to assess and disclose a project's impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act. They found almost none. The ones they did find were largely for facilities in the city of Santa Clara.

Projects can slip through with little environmental review if they fall under certain size or water use thresholds, or qualify for ministerial approval — a pathway that requires planning agencies to rubber-stamp projects that meet local zoning standards, bypassing meaningful public scrutiny.

Even for data centers that undergo more stringent review, the researchers found that documentation is rarely available to the public. In the few cases planning documents were posted publicly, the information was often "missing, contradictory, or vague." Water providers in data center clusters were contacted for usage data. None responded.

Targeting Vulnerable Communities

While California's data centers have historically clustered in the south Bay Area and Los Angeles, the report highlights a troubling new trend: large planned projects in rural, less affluent regions — including the heavily agricultural Imperial Valley and Kern County desert communities with dwindling groundwater.

"They need a bunch of cheap land. If we're not careful, they will end up being pitched, very convincingly, to communities that have real needs — without enough attention being paid to the water part."
— Irina Raicu, Santa Clara University

Community resistance is growing. Monterey Park residents in the San Gabriel Valley successfully opposed a data center project over environmental concerns and secured an upcoming vote on a citywide ban. A developer representative dismissed opponents as "rage-baiting an uninformed mob."

Raicu fired back: "If those communities are uninformed about the issue — whose fault is that?"

Legislature vs. Big Tech — Again

California Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed a 2025 bill requiring data centers to disclose water use to suppliers, citing concerns about burdening the industry. Now Assemblymember Diane Papan is trying again with two new bills — one requiring operators to report water use when seeking permits, and another that would bar local governments from approving new data centers unless the developer fully discloses water use plans, and prohibit development in critically overdrafted groundwater basins without state approval.

The Data Center Coalition opposed last year's disclosure bill and claims the industry used less water than agriculture — but offers no data to back that up.

"What matters most is the scale of new local use compared to available local supply. Unfortunately, this picture is clouded by data deficiencies."
— UC Berkeley, 2026

Researcher Iris Stewart-Frey was clear: her findings aren't a call to ban data centers. But "communities should know what they're getting themselves into."