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16 The Authority │ April Preparing Water Systems for the Data Center Boom By Matthew Junker, Public Relations Specialist, Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County Data centers, which sometimes execute artificial intelligence (AI) tasks, are the subject of much concern at the public level, with issues like potential job loss to AI, increasing electrical power rates, and grassroots opposition to the citing of these warehouse-sized buildings being only some of the issues raised. But how do they affect water systems? On May 13 and 14, 2025, the Pacific Northwest National Labs, American Water Works Association, US Department of Energy and others held a workshop on data centers, specifically addressing the resilience of energy and water systems when working to serve this growing part of the U.S. economy. The event was held in Alexandria, Virginia, where a large and growing cluster of data centers are cooled evaporatively by treated wastewater. Following the event, the American Water Works Association published “Cooling the Cloud” (to view the article: https://bit.ly/4qkjRcg) . "We set out to bring forward the challenges that data centers could cause for water utilities, so that the sector can be prepared to find constructive, collaborative solutions to accommodate new customers while protecting current customers, not only around water use but also impacts to infrastructure, finances, and other aspects of running a utility." said Adam Carpenter, the Senior Manager of Environmental Policy at the American Water Works Association who co-authored the report. According to the report, there’s a wide variation of demand rates for water- cooled data centers, i.e., there are examples given of a 2 million gallons (MGD) per day request, and in Pennsylvania, there are examples of developers asking for 10 times that number, perhaps for a campus of data centers. Rather than approaching a regulator for a massive increase in your withdrawal allocation, using treated wastewater rather than potable water seems like a wave of the future here in the Eastern U.S.. But, there are necessary adjustments to regulations that would be required, like permission to no longer discharge to a receiving body of water, or to be permitted to discharge less. And, the data center seeking your water would have to be connected to a new “purple pipe” (non-potable) distribution system, potentially with tanks, pump stations and other hardware. This could be a fruitful area to explore public-private partnership, where the data center could make the infrastructure investments. Some frequent builders of data centers have openly stated in the news that they plan to invest in U.S. Water systems as data centers are built. Also, receiving wastewater from a data center is not without issue, because as stated in PMAA’s 2026 resolutions (visit municipalauthorities. org/Government Relations/ Resolutions/ - Resolution #26-26), Total Dissolved Solids are a concern when data centers efficiently re-use cooling water. This means if you are approached by a potential data center customer, talk to them up front about an industrial pretreatment program. Out in the drought-prone Western U.S., electrical-powered air cooling is more prominent, if less efficient. The AWWA report discusses the above issues and others. Research staff from the Pacific Northwest National Labs also presented study findings that might be of interest to PA authorities. PNNL Data Scientist Kendall Mongird briefed the attendees on a parcel-level citing study for data centers – projecting where new ones could go based on power availability, water availability and other factors. The GIS dashboard can be found here: https://im3.pnnl.gov/datacenter- atlas. A press release summarizes the tool here: https://www.pnnl.gov/ publications/mapping-future-data- centers-new-public-tool-illuminates- whats-next While the larger societal debate continues over AI and data centers, water systems here in Pennsylvania now have some tools and studies to help prepare themselves for this wave of the future. S AWWA Publication, October 2025