The neighbors of a data center in Georgia are steaming after they discovered the facility had sucked up nearly 30 million gallons of water — without initially paying for it.
Outrage started bubbling up last year when residents of an affluent subdivision named Annelise Park in Fayetteville, Georgia, noticed their water pressure was unusually low.
When the county utility investigated, officials discovered two industrial-scale water hookups feeding a data center campus located 20 miles south of downtown Atlanta. One water connection had been installed without the utility’s knowledge, and the other was not linked to the company’s account and therefore wasn’t being billed.
All told, the developer, Quality Technology Services, owed nearly $150,000 for using more than 29 million gallons of unaccounted-for water. That is equivalent to 44 Olympic-size swimming pools and far exceeds the peak limit agreed to during the data center planning process.
The details were revealed in a May 15, 2025 letter from the Fayette County water system to Quality Technology Services, which outlined the retroactive charge of $147,474. The letter did not specify how many months the unpaid bill covered, but when asked about it Wednesday, Vanessa Tigert, the Fayette County water system director, said it was likely about four months.
Once the data center was notified, it paid all retroactive charges, a QTS spokesperson said in an email, noting the unmetered water consumption occurred while the county converted its system to smart meters.
The Fayette County water system confirmed the data center’s meters are now fully integrated and tracked. Tigert, the water system director, blamed the issue on a procedural mix-up.
“Fayette County is a suburb, it’s mostly residential, and we don’t have much commercial meters in our system anyway,” she said. “And so we didn’t realize our connection point wasn’t working.”
The incident became public last week when a county resident obtained the 2025 letter to QTS through a public records request and posted it on Facebook, prompting outrage from residents concerned about the data center’s water consumption.
The Fayetteville campus is one of the largest data center developments in the country, covering 615 acres with plans for up to 16 buildings. Right now, the campus is partially operational.
County officials say the campus will generate tens of millions of dollars in annual property taxes, but the facility’s massive scale and appetite for water and electricity has helped galvanize local pushback against more data centers. The Fayetteville City Council voted last month to ban new data centers in every zoning district within the city.
Georgia is home to more than 200 data center facilities and their thirst for water is turning into a political flashpoint. The entire state is experiencing moderate to high levels of drought, and Gov. Brian Kemp declared a state of emergency last month in response to one of Georgia’s worst wildfire outbreaks in years.
One resident said frustration with data centers boiled over after local officials told community members to scale back their water usage.
“We get this notification from Fayette County water system saying you need to stop watering your lawns to help conserve water,” said James Clifton, an attorney and property rights advocate who obtained and shared the 2025 letter to QTS.
“So the first thing they do is lean on the individuals and the citizens to stop water consumption when we have QTS that’s just absolutely draining us — most months it’s the No. 1 consumer of water in the county,” said Clifton, who is also running for a seat on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners.
QTS, a major data center developer with facilities across the country, disputes the accusation.
The company, which is owned by the private equity firm Blackstone, touts a “closed‑loop” cooling system, which it says does not consume water for cooling. Like a laptop or cellphone, the chips housed in data centers can easily overheat — generally requiring a lot of water to cool them.
The company said its water consumption was so high last year because of temporary construction-related activities, such as concrete work, dust control and site preparation.
Once operational, the company said the data centers only will use water for domestic needs, such as bathrooms and kitchens. That will total the equivalent of what four U.S. households use per month, the spokesperson said.
That may not happen for another few years, however. The company is still actively building and expanding its Fayetteville data center campus. It aims to finish in three to five years.
Tigert, who sent the 2025 letter to QTS, said the utility didn’t know about the water hookups because the connection process “got mixed up” as the county transitioned to a cloud-based system while also trying to accommodate an industrial customer. Tigert also said her staff is small and at capacity.
“Just like any water system, we don’t have enough staff. We can’t keep staff,” she said. “I’ve got one person that’s doing inspections and plan review, and so he’s spread pretty thin.”
She said it’s possible her staff did know about hookups but that she hadn’t been able to locate the inspection report. “I may have hit ‘send’ too soon,” she said about the 2025 letter to QTS.
While the utility charged the data center a higher construction rate for the unapproved water consumption, Tigert confirmed the utility did not penalize or fine the data center.
That decision has some residents stewing.
“It’s just frustrating to see them come into our community and run all over us like the citizens don’t matter, and then they’re above the law when they do break it,” Clifton said.
Gregory Pierce, director of the UCLA Water Resources Group, said it’s unusual that the utility didn’t fine the data center for breaking the rules.
“I don’t know exactly what’s happening here, but they probably don’t want to upset one of their new and largest customers,” said Pierce, who is studying the growing grip data centers have on local water systems.
Tigert defended the utility’s decision to not levy a fine.
“They’re our largest customer, and we have to be partners,” she said. “It’s called customer service.”
Miranda Willson contributed to this report.
