During the Montgomery County town hall meeting on Dec. 8, several questions were asked by area residents regarding the water usage for the proposed Amazon data center.
On Dec. 10, Amazon and Montgomery County released two letters, one from Amazon and another from engineering firm CDM Smith regarding the projected water usage for the facility.
According to the letter from Amazon that was addressed to Montgomery County Commission Presiding Commissioner Ryan Poston and signed by Brandon Oyer on behalf of Amazon, each building of the data center will use an average of 2.9 million gallons per year, which they define as the same amount of water a typical restaurant would use annually. At full build-out, which includes 17 buildings, the center would use approximately 50 million gallons per year on average, which they define as equivalent to what a typical golf course uses annually.
Amazon is planning a data center to be located on a 1,000-acre parcel in the northeast quadrant of the Interstate 70 and Highway 19 interchange near New Florence.
The letter goes on to state that two independent engineering firms, CDM Smith and Geosyntec Consultants, have confirmed that the aquifer the data center would be drawing from is healthy and contains abundant water volumes of more than 23 trillion gallons. According to the letter, only eight percent of the aquifer’s annual safe yield is currently being used. The addition of the Amazon data center will add only 0.03 percent of the aquifer’s safe yield based on annual average aquifer recharge, according to the letter.
The letter further states that the Amazon data center will use water for cooling for approximately seven percent of the year and will rely on outside air for cooling the remaining 93 percent of the year.
Beau Schilz, water principal with Amazon Web Services, said the design the company uses is a direct evaporative system that allows the facility to use outside air when the temperature is low enough. He said the seven percent figure represents an average typical year, but that this percentage can vary slightly up or down depending on weather.
Schilz said that based upon information Amazon has, the aquifer to be used by the data center recharges at an average annual rate of 150 billion gallons a year. He explained that the eight percent use figure includes all users of the aquifer and is eight percent of the average annual rate of recharge with Amazon’s portion of that being a very small 0.03 percent.
“It’s really important for people to understand that there are a lot of designs out there and some use a lot more water than others,” Schilz said. “We want everyone to understand how our design is different. We are one of the most water efficient operators out there.”
According to the letter provided by Amazon, their data centers are 60 percent more water efficient than the industry standard.
According to the letter from CDM Smith provided by Montgomery County, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has studied the aquifer the Amazon data center intends to use and has determined that by 2060, nearly five times more water will flow into the aquifer than will be used by all other expected water users.
The information from CDM Smith notes that the data center’s wells will be drilled to a depth of 1,500 feet to avoid interfering with private wells.
CDM Smith also notes that DNR predicts that by 2060 only 17 percent of the water naturally flowing into the aquifer each year will be used in the region where the data center is located. DNR projections show that by 2060, the aquifer will naturally refill at a rate of 406 million gallons per day, while total water withdrawals from all wells using the aquifer, not including the data center, will only use 71 million gallons per day (note that Amazon is projecting the use of 50 million gallons per year).
The 2060 figure is used to show the long-term viability of the aquifer.
Schilz also said that Amazon is constantly focusing on ways it can be more efficient in its water usage.
Schilz noted that Amazon will be partnering with the Montgomery County Water District and will be doing some of its own treatment of the water it pulls from wells so that they can use less of it. He said the more pure they can make the water the more times they can cycle it through their cooling systems, thus reducing the impact.
Schilz also said Amazon has a plan to ultimately return more water than the company uses to the community by 2030.
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