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Denver data center continuously waters its lawn even after city announced drought restrictions, enraging residents — it’s unclear if site is breaking the law or using its own recycled water Denver Water’s water collection system watersheds are now in an Extreme to Exceptional Drought. Denver Water, which supplies the city and its surrounding areas, has imposed Stage 1 drought restrictions in its service area starting August 2026 as water supplies continue to drop. According to Gadget Review, commercial properties like data centers can only water grass twice a week — on Tuesdays and Fridays — until September 30. Starting October 1, lawn sprinklers will be banned for use until the Board of Water Commissioners declares otherwise. However, one resident who was out walking their dog saw that the new AI data center built close to their home was watering its lawn and using so much water that some areas have started to puddle. “We can’t water our lawns until next summer, at the earliest, but you better believe that they are watering their entire green with so many sprinklers that it’s already making a giant pond, but I can’t water my f****ng tomatoes. I hate it here,” one resident claimed in the video. This has understandably raised a lot of outrage, especially with all the widespread, bipartisan resistance that these data centers have been facing. However, there are still a lot of unknowns when it comes to the video. Firstly, we do not know when the video was shot; there’s a possibility that it was recorded on either a Tuesday or a Friday, meaning the site was well within its rights to water its lawns, at least until September 30. The publication also noted several other possibilities: it could be using recycled, non-potable water, which Denver Water explicitly states, “are approved to irrigate any day of the week”; it could hold a variance from the utility provider, granting them permission to water their grass under “special circumstances,” or it was just plainly violating the law. Without further information, there’s just no way we can determine what is going on based on a single video. Nevertheless, this compounds the negative perception that data centers are already facing. Although closed-loop cooling technologies like those from Microsoft and Nvidia have essentially cut data center water consumption for cooling to zero, we still cannot get around the fact that several sites have already caused water issues for their neighbors. Many people are raising issues about data centers’ massive resource consumption and the other negative effects like noise and air pollution that they could potentially bring to their surroundings. It’s for these reasons that Denver, and hundreds of other jurisdictions, have passed temporary bans and moratoriums on data center development. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. - Rand0m_Guy Now Tom's is writing rage bait articles, but you want me to buy a subscription... LOLReply Lets summarize the article: - Headline: 'Look at this outrage!' - Body: '...which might not actually be an issue, we have no idea, need more information...' - COLGeek Regardless of the source/newsworthiness of the article, watering the lawn has zero to do with operating the data center.Reply Aesthetics? Yes. Inappropriate? Likely. Tone deaf? Definitely. Makes the hamster wheel go around and around? No. - zk303 My neighborhood (HOA ) is under Denver Water restrictions and there are definitely people who seemed quite excited to let their lawn go brown, which is not necessary if you water the same amount but fewer days. Pooling, runoff and lush lawns are definitely extremely bad form right now. The total ban next month is due to the general failure of stage 1 reductions this summer because people are not changing their behaviors enough, and it'll coincide approximately with the first freeze to encourage lawn dormancy (it's in the mid 90s today and another top 5 hottest summer, so we'll see about that)Reply - DS426 Let's see... very low water levels in Lake Mead and Lake Powell, Hoover Dam shutting down some generators and possibly more to all of them in the future, farmers in Cali fighting to get their own share of water... we're looking at a collapse of the West unfolding.Reply - bigdragon What use does a data center have for a lawn? I'll never understand why giant, windowless, warehouse-like structures need to be surrounded by perfectly manicured grass. I also suppose that data centers are the new golf courses. The rich truly do not feel subject to the same water restrictions as the poors.Reply - USAFRet Reply That has been a thing for decades. A BigPrinter company has a local plant, with perfectly curated grass next to the street. Has been there for at least 3 decades.bigdragon said:What use does a data center have for a lawn? I'll never understand why giant, windowless, warehouse-like structures need to be surrounded by perfectly manicured grass. I also suppose that data centers are the new golf courses. The rich truly do not feel subject to the same water restrictions as the poors. Same with the local NASA facility. Nice lawns. Now....this particular one watering its lawn, in the face of local water restrictions...gives a really bad look. But the fact that it is a DC is irrelevant. - USAFRet Reply Its just grass.ezst036 said:Why does a data center have a lawn? Here is the 'lawn' next to an active USAF runway: Here, next to a building at a nuclear accelerator facility: Here, next to a major NASA wind tunnel: - ezst036 Reply Since nobody owns "the grass" why is there outrage? Why is there even a news story on Tom's about generic non-descript certainly not connected with a data center grass?USAFRet said:Its just grass. - USAFRet Reply This particular article is just showing the callousness of that facility, when watering their grass in light of local watering restrictions.ezst036 said:Since nobody owns "the grass" why is there outrage? Why is there even a news story on Tom's about generic non-descript certainly not connected with a data center grass? That it is a data center is irrelevant to thee and me.
document fetched 2026-09-05 02:56 · canonical https://tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/denver-data-center-continuously-waters-its-lawn-even-after-city-announced-drought-restrictions-enraging-residents-its-unclear-if-site-is-breaking-the-law-or-using-its-own-recycled-water