Google Data Center’s expected water use made public

BOTETOURT COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) – The Western Virginia Water Authority this week released records detailing Google’s projected water use at a planned data center in Botetourt County, following a months-long court battle with the Roanoke Rambler.

The records show the data center will use 2 million gallons of water per day initially, eventually increasing to 8 million gallons per day.

A Roanoke Circuit Court judge became the first in Virginia to rule that a data center’s water usage cannot be considered proprietary information and withheld from a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Roanoke Rambler provided the following statement to WDBJ7 following the ruling:

“We are pleased the Western Virginia Water Authority has made public two contracts regarding a potential Google data center project in Botetourt County,” the statement read. “As The Roanoke Rambler argued in court last fall, the amount of water a data center could use should not be considered proprietary information…