Last year, residents of Annelise Park, an affluent community in Fayetteville, Georgia, began experiencing unusually low water pressure. When the county utility investigated, it discovered something shocking.
A Quality Technology Services (QTS) data center campus located about 20 miles south of Atlanta had been draining the Fayette County water supply for months without the utility’s knowledge, Politico reported Friday. By the time officials found the two industrial-scale water hookups feeding the campus, it had guzzled nearly 30 million gallons (113 million liters) of water without paying a dime. One connection had reportedly been installed without the utility’s knowledge, and the other was not connected to QTS’s account.
A May 15, 2025 letter from the Fayette County water system to QTS, reviewed by Politico, revealed that the developer was retroactively charged nearly $150,000. QTS did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment, but a company spokesperson told Politico that it paid the overdue bill in full and that the unmetered water consumption occurred while the county converted its system to smart meters.
It’s unclear exactly how long the data center campus was consuming county water unchecked. QTS told Politico the timeframe was 9 to 15 months. Fayette County Water System Director Vanessa Tigert did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment but told Politico the timeframe was likely closer to 4 months.
A community’s struggle against Big Tech
This incident adds to mounting concern over hasty data center development in parts of the country where water systems are not fully equipped to monitor the facilities’ usage. It also underscores the enormous strain that data centers put on the local water supply.
While the QTS campus was consuming free water, much of Georgia was in a drought. Fayetteville residents had been told to stop watering their lawns, according to James Clifton, a local attorney and property rights advocate who first obtained the 2025 letter to QTS and posted it on Facebook. He is also running for a seat on the Fayette County Board of Commissioners.
“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 told Politico.
Drought conditions in Georgia have only worsened since then. Now, the entire state is experiencing severe to exceptional drought. The worst conditions are concentrated in the southern part of the state, where large, destructive wildfires have been burning for weeks.
Georgia has also become a national hub for data centers. The state currently has 213 facilities listed, with the vast majority located near Atlanta, according to Data Center Map. The QTS project in Fayetteville is one of the largest in the country. Known as Project Excalibur, the campus has been under development since 2022. Once complete, its 16 buildings will span 6.6 million square feet (613,160 square meters) across a 615-acre site.
The volume of water Project Excalibur drained from the Fayette County water supply before receiving a bill far exceeds the peak limit agreed to during the data center planning process, according to Politico.
QTS told Politico its water consumption was so high last year due to temporary construction-related activities. The company claims its data centers use a “closed-loop” cooling system that “continually circulates the same water so there’s no impact to the local water supply.”
If the facility’s exceptional water consumption did stem primarily from construction, it could remain a problem for the next several years. QTS has filed to expand its Fayetteville data center campus and aims to finish construction by 2029.
This likely won’t be the last time we hear of a situation like this. As data center projects proliferate across the U.S., gaining approval before local systems are prepared to support their water and energy consumption, residents will increasingly pay the price. In Fayetteville and other parts of the country where data centers are rapidly multiplying, communities are standing up in opposition, but they have a long, difficult battle ahead of them.
