The Data Center Disinformation Campaign Ramps Up
Recently I was struck by a new billboard on Rt. 1 near Crane’s Corner in Stafford Co. (photo #1) touting that “many data centers use NO WATER 96% of the time”, and “many don’t use water at all”.
Concurrently, a similar ad appeared multiple times in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, (photo#2) again touting the lack of water usage and how data centers are “…building responsibly”. – “Get the facts.. .”
The ads were produced by VirginiaConnects.com, a pro-data center industry organization that is focused on advocating for data center buildout and providing information to stakeholders. The firm is backed by Data Center developers and operators, including Amazon, STACK, and Vantage (Prince William Times Aug 14 2025).
VirginiaConnects.com propaganda game was expertly pointed out in a recent article by two of my colleagues Ranjit Singh and Eric Bonds, in a recent article on Ranjit’s Substack, No Lines in Nature, here:
Their article was republished in a different format on FXBG Advance, here:
The Corporate Environmental Blame Game
VirginaConnect.com is simply invoking a public relations campaign intended to push back against the push back. The initial push back being the citizens and communities valid fact-based concerns regarding data centers and their impacts: on the landscape, on water use, on power use, on noise pollution, on air pollution. There is a groundswell of opposition to data center construction in communities locally and across the state, and their propaganda machine is now working overtime to paint data centers in the best light possible.
VirginiaConnects.com has also used a massive text message and mailer campaign in Prince William County in 2025, extolling the industry’s benefits, when opposition to data centers spread there. (Prince William Times April 14, 2025) here:
Data centers use mailers, text messages to counter pushback
Let’s examine the real facts regarding the copious amount of water required for data centers.
(I would remind you this is during a prolonged period of stress on our water hydrology due to rising temperatures from climate change, drought, data center development, and increased use).
“Some use no water 96% of the time. Some use no water at all”.
This is not just misleading, it is completely untrue. For starters, where do they think they get the water for the cement to construct the immense buildings? 200,000 gallons alone just for the foundation. by some accounts.
Regarding water usage for construction, potentially hundreds of millions of liters (roughly 100–1,300+ million liters / ~26–350+ million gallons) are used for materials in a large (~200 MW) facility, mainly from concrete production and mixing; exact totals vary widely and data is limited.
(estimates from a November 2025 Columbia University / ICEF Sustainable Data Centers Roadmap analysis)
Large Scale Data Centers also use far more water than the companies and data centers report.
Water used at power plants that supply their electricity can be many times as great as the water used in the data centers themselves. (Wall Street Journal July 3 2026).
Research from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory shows that about 90% to 93% of a data center’s water footprint comes from electricity generation alone. Plus water is also needed to produce the chips used in the servers in the Data Centers.
A majority of the new Data Centers in the US are to be built on drought-hit land. (The Guardian, June 8 2026).
Most of our local public discussion of data center water focuses on operational use (cooling servers, potentially often hundreds of thousands of gallons per day or more for evaporative systems) for large centers.
What is often lost in that discussion are the many indirect uses of water that a large data center requires, as I have just shown.
And all of those indirect uses don’t account for the actual amount of water used in whatever cooling process, including closed-loop systems, that the data centers employ. Closed-loop systems can evaporate up to 60% of the re-used water, keeping it from re-entering the watersheds. NDA’s have long kept the public in the dark on actual data center water use.
Let’s focus on what is happening in Virginia right now.
The recent revelation of an Virginia DEQ Aquifer study, whose release was held up for six months by the VA Government, shows that the aquifers in the eastern half of the state are under severe duress. The report is a jaw-dropping one. to the point that a bi-partisan letter was written to the Virginia Governor on Thursday, July 30 2026. Sens. Richard Stuart, R-King George, and Russet Perry, D-Loudoun, urged VA Gov. Abigail Spanberger to bring lawmakers back before a General Assembly session to address the issue and find out why they not receive the report until after this year’s 2026 legislative session had adjourned and the state’s biennial budget had taken effect.
Sens. Stuart and Perry said the Department of Environmental Quality study shows “virtually no capacity” in the Coastal Plain aquifer for large new uses such as data centers.
(The Center Square July 30 2026)
There likely isn’t enough groundwater to sustainably add any big, new industrial user, according to the study. (AP July 24 2026).
THAT MEANS WE CANNOT ACCOMMODATE MORE DATA CENTERS.
Add to that the Potomac River, the primary drinking water source for more than 2 million Virginians, was recently named the nation’s most endangered river, while the Rappahannock River continues to rank among the nation’s most endangered.
Regarding the 96% / 4% figure, touted in the ads, and appearing in the recent data center documentary. It appears to be a contrived figure, adopted by the data center industry, as a public relations tool, as it is not verified in the water service agreements, nor is it even factual.
We are in a serious water crisis. Not just in the arid west as has long been typical but here in Virginia also.
A big culprit is the data center industry.
To summarize, contrary to the information that VirginiaConnects.com tries to tell you, Data Centers are not building responsibly. The information is not only misleading, it is outright false.
Their propaganda campaign is merely “Public Relations” .
That is corporate-speak. For disinformation, falsehoods, lies.
All apply.
But the bottom line is that the information is NOT TRUE.
And that matters.
This piece first appeared on Jeff’s Substack.
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