The data centers in WA cluster in Quincy and Moses Lake in the Columbia Basin, which gets 7-9 inches of rain per year. The town of Quincy (pop ~8,200) uses grou

The data centers in WA cluster in Quincy and Moses Lake in the Columbia Basin, which gets 7-9 inches of rain per year. The town of Quincy (pop ~8,200) uses groundwater at rates equivalent to a city of 30,000, and during the 2021 drought the irrigation district cut off data center pumps entirely. You’re right that WA is a reasonable place relative to alternatives, and data center water use is a rounding error next to agriculture, but the strain is real at the municipal infrastructure level in the specific towns hosting these facilities.