Environment on WACN 21 News

Atlanta's data center boom has a water problem nobody wants to solve

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:00:00 -0400

I want to talk about something the Atlanta metro’s data-center boom has been quietly doing for the past three years, and that nobody in a position to do anything about it seems to want to discuss in public.

Water.

Hyperscale data centers — the massive warehouses that run cloud computing and AI training — use staggering amounts of water for cooling. A single medium-sized facility uses as much water per day as a small city. The largest ones use more than some Georgia counties.

Soaking May rains ease Georgia drought, but Lake Lanier still lags behind

Thu, 28 May 2026 10:00:00 -0400

After months of watching reservoirs shrink and stream gauges plummet, Georgia caught a break in May.

Metro Atlanta recorded more than five inches of rain during the month — well above the historical average and enough to rank May 2026 among the wettest on record for parts of the state. The rainfall recharged topsoil moisture, greened up parched lawns, and provided meaningful relief to farmers in south Georgia who had been drawing heavily on irrigation wells.

Georgia declares statewide Level 1 drought response as reservoir levels drop

Mon, 27 Apr 2026 16:30:00 -0400

The Georgia Environmental Protection Division declared a statewide Level 1 Drought Response on Sunday, citing record-low stream flows and deepening reservoir deficits that have pushed roughly 80 percent of the state into extreme or exceptional drought categories.

It is the most significant drought declaration the state has issued since the severe water crisis of 2007.

Lake Lanier’s slide

The state’s largest water source tells the story in numbers. Lake Lanier sat at approximately 1,065.7 feet above mean sea level as of Sunday afternoon — more than five feet below the Army Corps of Engineers’ full-pool target of 1,071 feet.