Google Data Center’s expected water use made public

BOTETOURT COUNTY, Va. (WDBJ) — The Western Virginia Water Authority this week released records detailing Google’s projected water use at a planned data center in Botetourt County, following a months-long court battle with the Roanoke Rambler.

The records show the data center will use 2 million gallons of water per day initially, eventually increasing to 8 million gallons per day.

A Roanoke Circuit Court judge became the first in Virginia to rule that a data center’s water usage cannot be considered proprietary information and withheld from a Freedom of Information Act request.

The Roanoke Rambler provided the following statement to WDBJ7 following the ruling:

“We are pleased the Western Virginia Water Authority has made public two contracts regarding a potential Google data center project in Botetourt County,” the statement read. “As The Roanoke Rambler argued in court last fall, the amount of water a data center could use should not be considered proprietary information under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act. The release of these records marks a win for transparency in government and the public’s right to know.”

Google announced plans last year to purchase more than 300 acres in the Greenfield area of Botetourt County. At the time of the land purchase, Google said it would pay to bring needed utilities to the area. The Western Virginia Water Authority has previously told WDBJ7 that a new water source will probably be needed around 2050.

Chad Bean, a Botetourt County resident, said he was glad the information was released, but said it should not have required a court case.

“My initial concerns are the fact that they weren’t transparent about it to begin with,” Bean said. “I think that the fact that they were asked to disclose the information, they continue to fight to do that. And that makes me question, really, where their allegiances are. Are they to the citizens of this area or are they to corporate entities?”

Bean said he believes the county may have entered into an agreement without fully accounting for the consequences.

“The board seems to be scrambling at this point to figure out what to do,” Bean said. “Seems like they may have entered into an agreement that is kind of exposing them, exposing the rest of the county or associated counties.”

Bean said he hopes the project can still be stopped.

“What I’d like to see done is for this to stop,” Bean said. “I don’t think that this is in the interest of the citizens who leverage this water. The Western Virginia Water Authority’s mission is to provide clean, sustainable water to citizens, not water to corporate entities. That completely contradicts their mission that’s on their website.”

The Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance, a group of citizens concerned about data centers coming to the region, said that while Google is expected to help pay for the creation of a future water source, the data center will also cause Carvins Cove to reach its limits faster.

Ben Verschoor, an organizer with the group, said members learned about the release of the unredacted contracts while attending Tuesday’s Botetourt County Board of Supervisors meeting, where County Attorney Michael Lockaby addressed the water authority’s posting of the documents.

Verschoor said the confirmed figures aligned with earlier estimates but carry significant implications.

“It is great that we finally have this information confirmed because there were these kinds of estimates that were floating around, but we couldn’t really be sure what they were referring to,” Verschoor said. “It’s good for us, and I think good for all parties to know that the day one expectation is using the 2 million gallons amount, and that the later need for a water source, that build out, will then require the 8 million gallons.”

Verschoor said Lockaby stated during the board meeting that the data center would push the timeline for needing a new water source from the 2060s to the 2030s.

“It’s still drastically accelerating that timeline,” Verschoor said. “And we think needlessly so, that the benefits do not outweigh the costs. And so, I’m glad to hear that some officials are voicing those same concerns.”

Verschoor said he does not believe a replacement water system could be built responsibly within that compressed window.

“Just the construction of it can take around a decade for a system like that to come online,” Verschoor said. “The numbers that he was using is that the benchmark isn’t total depletion, but at 20%. But even with that kind of buffer, that’s still saying that we have to, within four or five years, start on a ten-year process, even as data center demand might be growing, as population in the area and non-data center demand is growing.”

Verschoor said the group views the agreement as having been reached prematurely.

“I think it’s just incredibly irresponsible that this was agreed on before any of this was in place,” Verschoor said.

The data center transparency group said it hopes the Roanoke judge’s ruling will set a precedent requiring data centers to publish their water use in other areas and strengthen its position at the state level.

Verschoor said a bill currently in play in the General Assembly is HB 496, which would have directly addressed the redaction of predicted water usage, but was weakened to give localities the option — rather than the requirement — to disclose that information.

“Since the locality is kind of the problem here, that really did not solve anything,” Verschoor said.

That bill, which has passed the House of Delegates, would allow localities to require data centers to publish their estimated water use before receiving approval. The group hopes the Senate will strengthen the measure to make the requirement apply statewide.

Copyright 2026 WDBJ. All rights reserved.