A Meta data center project is reportedly causing issues in Morgan County, Georgia, where the community’s water supply has turned turbid right after it was constructed. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) showed the muddy water to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Assistant. Administrator for Water Jessica Kramer during a congressional subcommittee hearing, asking if the office is looking into how data centers affect water quality across the nation. You can see the exchange in the embedded post below.
AOC: This is what drinking water in Georgia looks like after Meta began data center construction in the community.
— @acyn.bsky.social (@acyn.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-05-22T15:02:01.633Z
“This is the current drinking water in Morgan County, Georgia, right after a data center was constructed, the Meta data center was constructed. The only difference between the clean water and this was that data center,” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez said during the hearing while showing the jars of dirty water. She also added, “These families now have to ship, in a rural area, have to ship water to their house in order to cook and bathe themselves. Now I'm curious if the EPA plans any investigations on how data centers are affecting water quality and availability. I understood what you said about the rule, but are there going to be any open investigations on this issue?”
Kramer, for her part, said that she will investigate the issue as soon as she gets back to her office, saying, “It is a priority to ensure that water quality standards established by EPA are being met. And so, we'll be looking into that, certainly.”
A video by More Perfect Union, a progressive media and advocacy group, on YouTube Shorts showed that the residents in this rural part of Georgia use private and community wells, taking water directly from under the ground. However, their only source of water has allegedly become undrinkable since the data center construction began, and they also pointed to a significant groundwater recharge area, where water from the surface collects underground. The county government protects these areas as surrounding communities rely on them as a water source, and the nearby areas must be managed to minimize the threat of pollution.
It’s currently unclear what caused the water quality to drop in Morgan County. While it happened after the Meta data center construction began, correlation does not automatically equate to causation. One possibility is that the turbid water coming out of the wells of Morgan County residents is a sign that the water table is getting too low, and their pumps are now taking in water from the well bottom, where mud and sediment settle. When you combine that with reports of data centers using up a ton of water, then it is understandable that some in the community would blame the data center project for their water woes.
This also isn’t the first time that a data center project has allegedly created a water supply issue. Another massive project located in Georgia has reportedly secretly siphoned off 29 million gallons of water in a year and three months, resulting in low water pressure for residents. There have also been many concerns about these sites driving higher electricity prices for large swathes of the U.S., as well as possibly cutting out the lights for an entire town. We’ve also seen noise complaints coming from these developments.
All these issues have got many people complaining about these developments, with 7 out of 10 Americans now opposing data center developments near their homes. And even as AI tech companies and hyperscalers are pushing for more compute, more jurisdictions are passing data center bans all over the country.
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