Part 4 of 13 in Thirteen Records. The long article, Data Centers Don’t Have an Environmental Record. They Have Thirteen of Them., rates thirteen kinds of environmental complaint against data centers. This series takes them one at a time.
I work at a local ISP in Northern Illinois and co-founded FD-IX, an internet exchange. I have no customer, vendor, or interconnection relationship with any facility or developer named here and no financial position in any of them beyond broad-market index funds. My industry grows with infrastructure investment in a general way, which is an indirect interest; the full disclosure is at the top of the complete article.
Two cases carry the water contamination claim. In Morrow County, Oregon, residents’ wells are full of nitrate and Amazon is one of 17 defendants. In Newton County, Georgia, a family 1,000 feet from Meta’s campus has had sediment in its well since construction started, and four families are now suing. Both are real. Both are in court. Neither establishes what it gets cited for at hearings, which is that data center operations contaminate groundwater.
This post reads each case for what the record supports: a wastewater system that concentrated nitrate already in the water, and a construction site with no pre-construction well test to compare against. The gap the Georgia case documents is not a data center gap. It is a hole in the stormwater permit framework that no federal standard fills, and it is the one item in this series a county could close before the next shovel.
How the ratings work. Each complaint below is stated the way it usually arrives at a hearing and rated on the scale the full article uses. Systemic: documented at compliant facilities across multiple geographies. Regional: real, but only under specific geographic or operational conditions. Isolated: documented at one or few facilities due to misconduct or atypical design. Exaggerated: the concern is real but the figures are permit ceilings or worst cases, not operating norms. Selective: a legitimate concern applied only to data centers, not to comparable land uses. Misattributed: the harm is real but the source, geography, or cause is wrong. Contested: a plausible mechanism exists but causal documentation at compliant facilities does not. Fabricated: no credible evidentiary basis exists. Where I say I found no record of something, that means a search of public sources through October 2026, not paid databases or records requests.
Water Quality
Water quality and water supply are different concerns. Volume is one question. Contamination is another.
Claim: Data centers contaminated wells in Oregon. Tier: Contested. One defendant among 17; causation unproven.
Amazon is one of 17 defendants in Pearson v. Port of Morrow, a February 2024 federal suit by Morrow County residents whose wells are contaminated with nitrate; the other named defendants include the Port of Morrow, food processors, farms, and Portland General Electric. The contamination traces to nitrogen-rich wastewater the port collects from food processors and data centers and sends to area farms, where it has been overapplied for years. The alleged pathway to Amazon runs through that system: the port’s nitrate-bearing wastewater cools Amazon’s servers, evaporation concentrates the nitrate, and the water goes back out to the same fields. [12] The cooling step concentrates nitrate already in the water rather than introducing it. This is an industrial wastewater case with a data center operator as one alleged contributor, not a case establishing that data center cooling contaminates aquifers on its own. Amazon denies contributing and says the region’s groundwater problems predate its data centers. In March 2026 it agreed to pay $20.5 million to settle with the plaintiffs, without admitting liability, and the case continues against the other defendants. [12]
Claim: Meta’s construction ruined its neighbors’ wells. Tier: Contested. Causation unresolved and now in court.
Beverly and Jeff Morris, whose home sits roughly 1,000 feet from Meta’s Stanton Springs campus in Newton and Morgan counties, Georgia, reported well failures beginning within months of construction starting in 2018: sediment that damaged appliances, pressure reduced to a trickle, and parts of the house without water. They have spent about $5,000 and cannot afford the roughly $25,000 a new well would cost. Reporting through spring 2026 described problems at a handful of nearby homes, not across the county. [29][10a] In late August 2026 the Morrises and three other families sued Meta and the Joint Development Authority, alleging that clearing, blasting, and excavation disturbed the aquifer and sent sediment into their wells. [29b] The Authority has acknowledged it did no well-water study before construction and called the cause unknown. [29a]
Meta says a consultant’s groundwater study found no impact: by its account the Morris property sits in a separate watershed, groundwater flows away from the plaintiffs, blasting was limited and more than a mile away, and the campus draws utility water, not groundwater. [29][29b][29c] Georgia’s own maps put the campus on a groundwater recharge area, the class the state treats as most vulnerable to surface activity. [29c] After a May 2026 congressional hearing, EPA had regional staff gather facts and said plainly that this “is not the same as opening a formal investigation”; a later unsigned EPA letter said neither EPA nor Georgia regulates private wells. [29][29b]
Whatever the court finds on cause, the case documents a gap in the framework. The construction stormwater permit that governed the site requires erosion and sediment controls and allows certain dewatering discharges, and it was not written to catch a disrupted private well; no federal standard requires a pre-construction well test that would give a neighbor a record to compare against. [30]
Claim: Data centers contaminate groundwater. Tier: Selective.
Groundwater contamination from normal operations at compliant data centers is not supported by published evidence. The plausible mechanisms, fuel storage, construction dewatering, and cooling discharge, exist at warehouses, manufacturing plants, and hospitals too, and nobody has published a comparison showing data centers differ on them, including this series. That is a reason to ask the same questions of every large facility, not a finding that the risk is identical.
What to ask for. Require water testing of private wells within a defined radius before construction, paid for by the applicant, with the results filed with the city. The Morrises in Georgia have no pre-construction well record to compare against, and the Joint Development Authority has acknowledged it did no well-water study before construction. [29a] No federal construction stormwater permit requires that test, and EPA’s answer in Newton County was that neither it nor Georgia regulates private wells. [30][29b] That makes it a local condition or no condition at all. A baseline does not prove cause, but it makes every later attribution argument answerable with a number, and it cannot be reconstructed after the blasting starts. Ask the same questions of the fuel storage and dewatering plans that you would ask of any large industrial site, because the plausible mechanisms are the same.
What nobody knows. Whether construction blasting and excavation affect private wells at Newton County distances has not been studied systematically. That decides whether Newton County is an outlier or the first documented instance of a pattern.
This is part 4 of 13 in Thirteen Records, a series that takes the long article Data Centers Don’t Have an Environmental Record. They Have Thirteen of Them. one topic at a time. Previous: water supply. Next: cooling wastewater, the stream every evaporative campus sends to the sewer and almost nobody mentions.
Cover photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service / Wikimedia Commons, public domain
Citations
[10a] Richard Elliot, WSB-TV Channel 2 Atlanta, “North Georgia neighbors say data center responsible for dirty well water,” May 27, 2026. Station reporting: Meta takes about 102,000 gallons of Newton County water a day, used in a closed system, about 2% of county water usage. Meta statement: commissioned groundwater study found no impact on residents. https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/north-georgia-neighbors-say-data-center-responsible-dirty-well-water/YERXGUYXHVAGPIAPQJ6ILVC4BQ/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260715103535/https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/north-georgia-neighbors-say-data-center-responsible-dirty-well-water/YERXGUYXHVAGPIAPQJ6ILVC4BQ/)
[12] Alex Baumhardt, Oregon Capital Chronicle, republished by Oregon Public Broadcasting, “Amazon to pay $20.5 million settlement over northeast Oregon nitrate pollution,” March 31, 2026. Pearson v. Port of Morrow, U.S. District Court, filed February 2024; Amazon “one of 17 total defendants, including 10 previously unnamed ones”; class status sought for Morrow and Umatilla county residents; port wastewater “used to cool computer servers,” which “further elevat[es] the concentration of nitrate it holds before also being end-use applied to area farm fields”; Amazon spokesperson denial; settlement with no admission of liability; plaintiffs’ attorney Steve Berman on continuing the case against other defendants. https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/31/amazon-fine-northeast-oregon-boardman-nitrate-pollution-well/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261025160214/https://www.opb.org/article/2026/03/31/amazon-fine-northeast-oregon-boardman-nitrate-pollution-well/)
[29] The New York Times / CBS Atlanta / Bloomberg Law, reporting on Meta Stanton Springs campus and Newton/Morgan County groundwater, July 2025 through May 2026. Primary: Eli Tan, The New York Times, “Their Water Taps Ran Dry When Meta Built Next Door,” July 14, 2025 (Beverly and Jeff Morris account; 1,000-foot setback; construction beginning 2018; $5,000 in damages; $25,000 well replacement estimate; Newton County Water and Sewerage Authority executive director Mike Hopkins: Meta’s data center uses about 10% of the county’s total daily water; county on track for a water deficit by 2030 according to a 2024 report; Mansfield Mayor Blair Northen: water rates set to increase 33% over the next two years). Syndicated copy: https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/their-water-taps-ran-dry-when-meta-built-next-door (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261025155119/https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/their-water-taps-ran-dry-when-meta-built-next-door) CBS Atlanta, “AOC presses EPA over Morgan County drinking water concerns as Meta defends Georgia data center operations,” updated May 28, 2026: Meta’s independent groundwater study by a consulting and engineering firm retained in May 2025 “found that our data center operations and construction had no impact on the resident”; property “located in a separate watershed roughly 1.3 miles from portions of the campus” and “more than a mile away from isolated blasting operations”; House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing, May 20, 2026; Region 4 directed to contact Georgia EPD, Morgan County Public Health Department, and UGA Cooperative Extension; Morgan County health department had received resident questions about low pressure and dirty water. https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/aoc-presses-epa-over-morgan-county-drinking-water-concerns-tied-to-georgia-data-center-development/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260720211410/https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/aoc-presses-epa-over-morgan-county-drinking-water-concerns-tied-to-georgia-data-center-development/). CBS Atlanta, May 28, 2026, reports EPA’s follow-up statement that directing Region 4 to gather information “should not be interpreted as a formal federal investigation,” quoting EPA directly: “looking into a matter and gathering facts is not the same as opening a formal investigation.” https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/aoc-presses-epa-over-morgan-county-drinking-water-concerns-tied-to-georgia-data-center-development/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260720211410/https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/aoc-presses-epa-over-morgan-county-drinking-water-concerns-tied-to-georgia-data-center-development/) and Bloomberg Law, May 21, 2026: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/epa-to-investigate-meta-data-center-link-to-contaminated-water (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260526080640/https://news.bloomberglaw.com/environment-and-energy/epa-to-investigate-meta-data-center-link-to-contaminated-water)
[29a] Ben Sheidler, JDA spokesman, statement to The New York Times, July 2025, as quoted by Moneywise (republished on Yahoo Finance), May 24, 2026: “The Joint Development Authority did not do a well water study before construction”; the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton Counties did not conduct a well-water study before construction began; cause of residents’ water issues described as unknown, timing “could be a coincidence.” https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/energy/articles/aoc-holds-jar-brown-water-151500899.html (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260731213116/https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/energy/articles/aoc-holds-jar-brown-water-151500899.html)
[29b] Dylan Jackson and Zachary Hansen, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “Georgia families sue Meta, accuse its data center of tainting their water,” September 1, 2026: complaint filed in Gwinnett County by four families including Jeff and Beverly Morris against Meta and the Joint Development Authority of Jasper, Morgan, Newton and Walton Counties; allegations that tree clearing, blasting, and excavation disturbed the aquifer and contaminated wells with silt and sediment, plus dust, nighttime light, noise, and air emissions; Meta’s study found groundwater flows away from the plaintiffs’ properties and all facility water comes from a local utility; Meta “will still defend ourselves from baseless lawsuits”; unsigned EPA letter after the hearing stating neither the agency nor the state of Georgia regulates private drinking water wells. Allegations are unadjudicated. https://www.ajc.com/news/2026/09/georgia-families-sue-meta-accuse-its-data-center-of-tainting-their-water/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261006163828/https://www.ajc.com/news/2026/09/georgia-families-sue-meta-accuse-its-data-center-of-tainting-their-water/)
[29c] Ashlyn Webb, WSB-TV, “4 Georgia families sue Meta, claim data center construction contaminated well water,” October 21, 2026: Meta letter acknowledging “limited blasting” about 1.1 miles from the Morris property and suggesting “well age and maintenance practices”; Georgia Environmental Protection Division maps showing the campus on a recharge area, the category the state considers most vulnerable to groundwater pollution from surface activities. https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/4-georgia-families-sue-meta-claim-data-center-construction-contaminated-well-water/FVX726UR7FGJTLEAOYTQ4MDZ2Y/ (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261025162445/https://www.wsbtv.com/news/local/4-georgia-families-sue-meta-claim-data-center-construction-contaminated-well-water/FVX726UR7FGJTLEAOYTQ4MDZ2Y/)
[30] U.S. EPA, NPDES Construction General Permit (CGP), 2022 version, Parts 1.2 and 2.4. Requires Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plans and erosion and sediment controls for construction activity disturbing one or more acres, incorporating effluent limitations set under 40 CFR Part 450 (Construction and Development Point Source Category). Authorizes certain dewatering discharges as allowable non-stormwater discharges under specified conditions. Does not require pre-construction baseline testing of adjacent private residential wells. https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2022-01/2022-cgp-final-permit.pdf (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20260908214338/https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2022-01/2022-cgp-final-permit.pdf) Georgia program: Georgia Environmental Protection Division, General NPDES Permits GAR100001 (stand-alone construction), GAR100002 (infrastructure), and GAR100003 (common development) for stormwater discharges from construction activities; current permits reissued August 1, 2023 and in effect from August 23, 2024 after a stay. https://epd.georgia.gov/forms-and-permits/watershed-protection-branch-forms-permits/storm-water-forms/npdes-construction (archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20261025162738/https://epd.georgia.gov/forms-and-permits/watershed-protection-branch-forms-permits/storm-water-forms/npdes-construction)