Blackstone-Owned Data Center Drained 30 Million Gallons of Water From Atlanta Suburb

One data center. Thirty million gallons of water.

This article originally appeared on the Daily Caller News Foundation and was republished with permission.

Guest post by John Oyewale

A data center campus in north-central Georgia consumed more than 29 million gallons of water without the local utility company initially realizing it, triggering low-pressure water flow to its host community, Politico reported Saturday.

The 615-acre Fayetteville-based data center campus, codenamed “Project Excalibur,” was found to have one water connection installed without the knowledge of the Fayette County water system, and another that was not linked to its developer’s account and therefore was not being billed, according to the outlet.

The amount of water that the campus consumed could fill 44 Olympic-size swimming pools and far exceeds the maximum amount agreed to during the data center planning process, the outlet reported. The situation occurred against the backdrop of Georgia’s ongoing moderate-to-exceptional drought.

The county reportedly discovered the issue after investigating its finding that residents of Annelise Park, a wealthy neighborhood in suburban Atlanta near the data center campus, were experiencing unusually low water pressure. The county’s initial response was to admonish residents to conserve water, according to the outlet.

The data center campus’s developer is Quality Technology Services (QTS), owned by the New York City-based alternative asset manager and private equity firm Blackstone.

A resident’s public records request unearthed a May 15, 2025, letter from the county water system to QTS stating that the firm owed $147,474 in total, according to the outlet. The resident reportedly posted the letter online. The post alerted other residents, leaving them aghast at the situation.

“We get this notification from Fayette County water system saying you need to stop watering your lawns to help conserve water,” James Clifton, an attorney and property rights advocate who obtained and shared the 2025 letter to QTS with Politico, told the outlet.

“So the first thing they do is lean on the individuals and the citizens to stop water consumption when we have QTS that’s just absolutely draining us — most months it’s the No. 1 consumer of water in the county,” Clifton added. Clifton reportedly is also vying for a seat on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners.

QTS blamed its high water consumption on ongoing construction work, saying that it has a “closed‑loop” cooling system that does not require water for cooling, according to Politico.

Data centers generally require a lot of water for cooling as data-storing chips domiciled in the centers easily overheat.

Vanessa Tigert, the Fayette County water utility’s director, explained that meters have almost always been for residential use, and that the area’s suburban nature meant there had been very few commercial water hookups until recently. Because of the inexperience with commercial usage, the utility “didn’t realize our connection point wasn’t working,” Tigert stated, according to Politico.

A QTS spokesperson told Politico via email that the data center campus paid the retroactive charge it was billed.

Meanwhile, the county water utility did not fine QTS, arguing that it was the community’s largest customer and should now be a partner, a decision that further angered the host community, according to Politico.

Data centers have become political flashpoints across the U.S. Last week, PJM Interconnection — the largest U.S. power grid operator, which serves over 67 million consumers across its operational area — released a white paper detailing the potential need to take drastic measures as its infrastructure is now strained by data center expansion and disruptive environmental policy.

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