City Cast Chicago Could Data Centers Drain Lake Michigan?
Sep 8, 2025
Helena Volzer, a Senior Water Policy Manager for the Great Lakes Alliance, dives into the intricate relationship between data centers and water depletion. She highlights the alarming water demands of these tech hubs and their potential impact on Lake Michigan, one of the world's largest drinking water sources. The conversation also tackles the urgent need for proactive water management strategies, community involvement, and sustainable practices to protect regional water resources amid escalating technological growth.
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Three Sectors Converge On Water Demand
- Three converging, water-intensive sectors threaten regional supplies: irrigated agriculture, data centers, and critical-minerals mining.
- The report highlights tech (AI/data centers) as the fastest-growing water demand driver.
Data Centers Use Consumptive Evaporative Cooling
- Hyperscale data centers often use evaporative cooling that consumes water by evaporation and loses it from the watershed.
- A single center can use 1–5 million gallons per day, making the use largely consumptive.
Mining Also Carries High Consumptive Water Costs
- Critical-minerals mining pumps and consumes groundwater and often contaminates processing water, reducing reuse.
- Mining for copper and nickel for green tech and data-center hardware is highly water intensive.