Google data center capped at 2M gallons of water a day until infrastructure upgraded

BOTETOURT COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) – Officials at Western Virginia Water Authority are making it clear: they will say “no” if Google requests anything more than the 2 million gallons of water a day it has been promised for a planned data center in Botetourt County.

While the contract between the county and the tech giant allows Google to request up to 8 million gallons of water daily, local officials say they are simply not prepared for that level of demand today.

“If Google came today and said that they needed eight million gallons, we would say no,” said Laura Schirmer, Public Relations Program Manager for Western Virginia Water Authority. “We’re not prepared for that. We would need to be able to have the infrastructure and the water supply in place to be able to meet that demand.”

Any future expansions or upgrades to the system will depend entirely on usage:

• The Infrastructure: The physical infrastructure to deliver more than 2 million gallons of water a day does not exist…