AI is quite unpopular among American citizens. According to a recent survey, the majority believe that it will have a negative impact on society. There is something in particular that has earned the rejection of a large part of the population: data centersand the truth is that they have no shortage of reasons. They pollute the airthey make raise the electricity bill and now they also contaminate the water with potentially deadly bacteria.
what has happened. They count in Futurism that the authorities of Cheyenne, Wyoming, have prohibited all data centers from discharging any type of waste into the drinking water network. The reason is that Goat Systems LLC, a Meta contractor that is participating in the construction of a new data center, discharged water contaminated with Cupriavidus gilardii to the public sewage, a rare and very dangerous bacteria, especially for immunosuppressed people.
The investigation. It’s not that anyone was monitoring the water quality at this particular data center, but rather that the bacteria was detected incidentally during routine testing for fecal contamination. “It’s not something we normally look at,” Frank Strong, head of the Cheyenne water agency’s engineering division, told local Wyoming News. The trail led them to the data center that Meta is building in the city, although Strong admits that they still do not know the exact origin of the pathogen within the facility.
Consequences. As soon as the origin was determined, the authorities closed the facilities and stopped the discharge immediately. Additionally, as we said, they are revoking permissions so that other data centers can do the same. This means that they will not be able to do the process known as fill and flushwhereby they fill their cooling systems with water and then purge them before startup.
Cupriavidus gilardii. It is an environmental bacteria that is found naturally in the soil. According to a study published in March of this year, is considered a opportunistic pathogen which rarely infects humans, but if it does it can cause death. To date, seven cases of death caused by Cupriavidus gilardii have been known and, at the moment, none have been recorded related to the spill from this data center.
Meta’s response. In a public statement, a Meta spokesperson recalled that the bacteria had been found in wastewater, not public drinking water, and stated that it “immediately stopped discharging industrial wastewater and began transporting it outside the facilities.” However, the sewage system where the bacteria was located goes to a plant where wastewater is treated and then reused in public spaces such as parks, hence the authorities’ ban. What is clear is that the popularity of data centers in the US does not seem to be improving anytime soon.
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