alt Hacker NewsThe construction itself absolutely alters local watersheds:
1. Replacing forests and fields with concrete buildings prevents rainwater from filtering into the soil, which stops local aquifers from recharging.
2. During storms the rain runs off impervious surfaces and can cause downstream flooding.
3. Heavy land grading washes loose sediment into nearby waterways, destroying aquatic habitats and turning private drinking wells muddy. (That especially gets local homeowners angry and gets lots of video views).
And then you have the ongoing operation of open cooling systems:
4. Evaporative cooling systems discharge concentrated mineral brine that spikes the salinity of freshwater ecosystems.
5. Cooling water is treated with toxic biocides and anti-scalants that can contaminate local water basins. It can also contain leached copper, zinc, and PFAS.
6. Discharging warm wastewater depletes oxygen in streams and alters the overall ecology.
Of course all of these issues could be mitigated to a reasonable degree with proper care and effort:
>this seems like it shouldn't happen if things are being done properly
Do you want to bet your whole town on things being done properly right now?
Replies
The first three apply to any construction project with a paved surface and there are ways to mitigate that, you can collect the runoff in a cistern/tank that filters back into the groundwater or collect it in a retention pond which does the same thing.
Items 4 and 5 apply to any facility with cooling towers, not limited to but including hospitals, apartment buildings, schools, prisons, cold storage warehouses, combined cycle power plants, large commercial buildings, paper plants, retirement homes, commercial bakeries, industrial facilities with heat rejection needs, etc.
The sixth one applies to virtually every power plant in existence.
how would this mess with a water supply though, or are we talking the private wells? with a private well though it's something you want to mitigate either way, filters, etc, granted I have only seen the handful of clips where someone is showing dirty water coming out of the tap and I am trying to trace the chain of responsibility for the water supply, thanks for the detailed response btw
>The construction itself absolutely alters local watersheds:
The first 3 apply to all construction. It's just being selectively applied because people hate datacenters.
All of this applies to all construction of all types. There are already plenty of environmental regulations around buildings and their construction. Maybe these aren't being enforced, maybe the laws need to be stricter. I'm not an expert but it sounds plausible. But if that's the case, we have to fix those problems otherwise you're just playing whack-a-mole with development. When you specifically focus on datacenters and stopping datacenters it gives away that environmentalism is just a fig leaf for your actual goals.