Atlanta Intown: Column on "Digital Gold Rush" environmental threats
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Above the Waterline: ‘Digital gold rush’ threatens air, land, and water
by Sally BetheaOctober 26, 2025 | 9:50 am
My daughter-in-law, Meredith, is practical and patient. She’s my go-to person for the things I can’t figure out how to do, of which there are a growing number. Among dozens of other tasks, she’s shown me how to open my grandson’s baby stroller, operate my wireless music speaker, and inflate my camping pad. Most of all, I rely on Meredith to help me with the electronic technology that baffles and frustrates me on a regular basis.
When I decided to write about the proliferation of data centers in metro Atlanta, Meredith suggested (ironically, as she noted) that I check out ChatGPT—the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that you can “talk to,” as though it were another person. It generates “human-like” text and can answer questions about virtually any topic. It can also generate incorrect responses, or “hallucinations.” There are biases in the human-created system as well. Critical thinking is essential.
With Meredith’s assistance, I opened the ChatGPT App and asked my question. What should I include in a story about data centers: the buildings filled with equipment to process internet traffic, facilitate AI, and store massive amounts of digital data? The answer wasn’t revolutionary, but I received a useful outline in a nanosecond. (Notably, a ChatGPT query consumes about five times more electricity than a simple web search.)
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An admission: I am addicted to Googling various subjects on my smartphone. The digital world of the internet is a great improvement over the Ouija boards and Magic 8-Balls of my teenage years in the 1960s—again, as long as critical thinking is employed. Dozens of times each day, I ask my phone random questions that pop into my ADHD-addled brain. Until recently, however, I had not thought about the cost of my queries—in terms of energy, water use, and community impact.
Like millions of other people, I’ve used the “magic” of the internet, assuming that its infrastructure was located somewhere else. That “somewhere else” is now Georgia, with the explosion of proposed data centers. The environmental impacts, lack of government oversight, and corporate secrecy are alarming.
Adobe Stock Credit: Adobe Stock / Adobe Credit: Adobe Stock / Adobe Credit: Adobe Stock / Adobe
Hot Market for Data Centers
Once the booming epicenter of the South’s railroad network, Atlanta is again a crossroads for huge financial investment and development—this time related to the digital industry. According to an excellent series in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the region is the country’s hottest data center market, “playing host to a digital gold rush by tech giants, real estate speculators, and private equity firms.” There appear to be about 100 existing centers and several dozen proposed locations—primarily in the Atlanta region—but no one knows for sure.
Atlanta’s expansive fiber optic infrastructure offers a solid backbone for data centers, coupled with available land, inexpensive water supplies, and an electric utility (Georgia Power) salivating at the thought of new business. State and local officials are providing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars as incentives to attract developers, despite the highly speculative nature of the AI boom.
Business analysts are already comparing the rapacious industry growth to the infamous dot-com bubble of the late 1990s—when a similar speculative frenzy and overvaluation resulted in a plunge in stock values and bankruptcies. They also note that the U.S. economy is being bolstered by the extraordinary boom in AI: a precarious situation.
At What Cost
The deluge of data centers may place metro Atlanta in the vanguard of the next technological revolution—but at what cost? One large data center can demand as much power and water as a small city. Will the resources allocated to centers preclude future local development? Will electricity and water rates increase for all customers? If water is rationed during droughts, will the centers have priority over other water users? Critically, none of these questions, and many more, have been answered.
There are few government guardrails. No state office is charged with identifying all the proposed centers. There are no regulations to require tracking of their power and water use. Several state legislators are working on laws to protect communities and the environment, as the AI boom accelerates; however, their efforts have been rebuffed by lobbyists for Big Tech and Big Power.
Local governments are rezoning sites for industrial use that are hundreds of acres in size—some a thousand acres—with minimal information about data center needs. The speculators promoting these hyperscale projects refuse (or are unable) to divulge details about their electricity and water requirements. Why the secrecy, if these projects are harmless, cash-cow opportunities for communities?
How will a community cope with the data center projects that inevitably go bust—after land is cleared (and starts to erode); after the power grid expands with more polluting coal and gas plants (and rates increase for all customers); and after permits have been issued for withdrawals from limited water sources? In metro Atlanta, water supplies are highly vulnerable to droughts. In fact, we’re in a severe drought now. Importantly, a significant amount of the water used to cool most data facilities is consumed through evaporation; it is not returned to its source, thereby depleting downstream flows.
Data center proposals across metro Atlanta have faced protests and packed local meetings—as residents rightfully fear their “community wealth” will be seized for corporate profits. From the city of Atlanta to small communities in the metro region and statewide, people are demanding answers and successfully securing moratoriums and bans on the centers.
Minimizing Harm
There is little doubt that more data centers are needed to power digital services. While I’m not planning to stop my daily Google searches, I am thinking more about my personal digital footprint. The question—and it’s a really important one—is whether or not state and local officials are going to take any actions to protect citizens and natural resources from exploitation by the speculative AI industry.
Data center development must be tracked to understand the cumulative impact of these facilities. Actual water and power use information must be collected. These metrics must be made available to the public. Developers must fund their own installations, rather than relying on taxpayer or ratepayer support. Alternative power and water sources must be considered, e.g. reuse wastewater and rainwater for cooling, efficient “waterless” closed-loop cooling systems, and renewable energy sources.
On Nov. 4, citizens have the opportunity to elect two new members of the Georgia Public Service Commission (psc.ga.gov), which regulates electric utility rates and services, including data centers. Read about the candidates by searching Public Service Commission at RoughDraftAtlanta.news, then vote!
Tagged:Artificial intelligencedata centerselectricityenvironmentGeorgia PowerGeorgia Public Service Commissionwater
Sally Bethea is the retired executive director of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and an environmental and sustainability advocate. Her award-winning Above the Waterline column appears monthly in Atlanta Intown. More by Sally Bethea