I can’t believe it: a ragebait screenshot with a mix of accurate and inaccurate details that make a bad situation look even worse. You all have frontal lobes, fellow apes. Use them to think critically, because there’s a REASON memes like this want you to react emotionally and it’s not in your best interests at all.
Tl;dr: the data center’s usage is an issue, the local governments that facilitate and even encourage this behaviour are arguably even worse.
Truth: this shit hole data center used 30M gallons of water over the course of several months without being billed for it.
Rage Bait: they did it “illegally.”
Truth: the data center fully intended and was allowed by local government to use that water in the course of its construction, but weren’t billed because they didn’t inform the local utility of one water hookup, and the utility cocked up by ignoring the usage for that hookup and failed to bill the center for the usage on its second hookup. The data center did exceed their usage limits, but that’s not illegal: they simply pay penalties for the overage. The local utility waived these penalties because they’re spineless.
Rage Bait: the exceedance caused a drop in water pressure.
Truth: the locals experiencing water pressure drops receive their water from groundwater while the data center uses surface water. Given groundwater recharge rates are painfully slow, the data center’s usage did not cause the issue, though the pressure complaints led to the investigation that found the billing issues.
Rage Bait: they did it “illegally.”
but weren’t billed because they didn’t inform the local utility of one water hookup,
^^ That’s the illegal part.
When a consumer hooks up a utility without informing the utility, that is “theft of services” and they are arrested.
https://www.4029tv.com/article/fort-smith-stealing-electricity/71286214
It has been clarified that the hookup wasn’t without the knowledge of the utility, it was a failure of a new transmitter/verifying they were getting readings.
I work in this realm and as soon as I read the quotes from the utility in the first batch of articles it was immediately clear that people who didn’t have all the information were responding to inquiries. Your average utility employee, even in admin functions have zero media training. If I had a penny for every time I had to deal with the fallout of some ambitious comment that was taken out of context by the media or public, I’d have several pennies.
You are absolutely correct! I evaporated 30 million gallons of water that I was not legally allowed to use. Would you like me to come up with a plan to reduce water usage?
I see what you did there; you won’t get away with it ChatGPT.
Reduce your carbon footprint citizen! It’s your fault the world is on fire. Eco something and save plastic turtles or whatever… yeah.
I remember around the early 10s of this century the mainstream story in all media was how the earth was overpopulated and can’t handle it in 2030. We can’t sustain 9 billion, That story didn’t last long when the feudal billionaire masters realized they needed the bodies for slavery in order to hoard wealth like never before in history. Now birth rates are dropping worldwide and that claim is dead.
When you owe the bank $10,000 then you’ve got a problem.
When you owe the bank $100M then the bank’s got a problem.
I cost taxes, what am I?
A tenant
I be a dog sorcerer, boy, and I eat master eyes when I do I become I and dog be master of dog and master go fuck himself in a paddleboat like Jim Davis.
Damn. That’s deep.
Just as deep as Master goes in my pooter.
You know Master, right? That unified field of consciousness that arose from the supersymmetry of the ever-present, eternal emptiness to then fold in and on Itself across eleven dimensions to form a topological matrix that acts as a monadic nodal communication system? He a big poopie butt sometime, so I give myself wedgie to give Him wedgie. Server, Client, Holy Interbutt, y’know? Remind me of marble. I eat marbles.
whoops, accidentally used a bit too much water
corporations are people until crimes
No, people who aren’t conscious also cannot be legally guilty. Its why fascists don’t get prosecuted.
Hope they kept that water for when the town burns that data center to the ground.
They did get billed ~$150k and paid for the water. Questions have not been answered about how the two connections were made without the water authority’s knowledge. Seems difficult for a water main to just spontaneously form but maybe, I am not a pipe expert
My father worked for the city’s utilities and he said they could see when an ad break was during a big TV event because everyone was going to the toilet at the same time. They usually knew when someone had a broken pipe in their cellar before the owner did because of the change in pressure at that location.
No way did the city not know where the water was going.
I hadn’t thought of this, but it’s definitely a thing. They’ve been searching for missing pipes here since we got a data center our landlord emails about looking for leaks that don’t exist
This is one of those civilization ending things. Use of food and water in Palestine has been pretty awful.
Public utilities is woke socialism.
Certainly they knew, but did the same people who saw that knew it wasn’t supposed to be going there? Like you see millions going to a datacenter, but maybe you just assume that’s normal and have no idea that they aren’t being billed for it?
Water uhhhhh finds a way
It flows down a pipe from Canada
🤓
Indeed this is a excellent comment on multiple levels.
The issue here would only be that it never naturally goes where you want it to 😉.
they knew, they just dont want to openly admit it, and just use ignorance.
We need to stop being cowards, and actively go after these people. Sue for every little thing, blacklist them, get them fired.
~$150k and paid for the water
Can someone put that into perspective for me? I also have a hard time figuring how much 30 mil gallons actually is, like how many households for how long etc.
In any case, honest mistake sounds like a blatant lie, but hey, if POTUS does it why shouldn’t they?
People should provide article links.
According to the EPA, the average American family of four uses about 400 gallons of water per day, or 12,000 gallons per month. This feels high to me, but we’ll use that.
So, 30 million gallons is roughly the monthly usage of 2,500 four-person households, or the daily usage of 75,000 homes.
How does the average American Family manage that consumption?
German family of Four here: We use around 200liter a day. That’s roughly 50gallons. And we do wash ourselves and our clothes.
It’s for sure a lot. Maybe the Epa is counting the water that so many Americans spend watering our trademark huge monoculture lawns so they can stay green regardless of drought/heat wave conditions. Some homes have almost industrial scale sprinkler systems just to accomplish this, although I’m not confident even that would get you up to 400 gallons
Don’t a large number of US-Americans also have pools? That’s also a big chunk of water.
400 is a lot for 4-person household. are they taking showers night and morning.
That definitely feels high, mine is a household of two but I know exactly how much water I use because I’m off grid and I have to go haul it myself from the city my tank on my trailer holds 275 gallons and that’s generally enough to last me anywhere between a week to two weeks depending on how much laundry I need to do.
I shower daily, do dishes all the usual stuff so what the fuck is the average family doing with all that water that they are using more in a day than I do in a week
Not living off grid…?
I feel like you missed the part where I said that I’m showering daily, I have a dishwasher, do laundry with a standard front load washing machine i may not be connected to a city water but I have everything plumbed in i have all the usual stuff in a household. The only thing that was relevant about being off grid is that I have an exact understanding of how much water I go through at any given moment
No no I understand, I wasn’t meaning to be rude but just by virtue of the fact you are aware of every bit of water you’re using and need to plan ahead means you’re likely a lot more conservative with your usage, even if you’re going buck wild
I feel like they’re adding in water usage to manufacture goods and deliver services. We’re a family of four allotted 2k gal a month for a base rate, over that is charged extra. We’ve never gone over that 2k, and we’re using normally (dishes, laundry, bathing, watering plants, etc).
Looking up the average for New Zealand, I see everything from 250l per family to 275l per person quoted as average.
Much of New Zealand doesn’t meter their water, so all they can do is measure the water put into the system and divide by the number of households/estimated people (minus commercial/industrial use that is metered).
In the area I live in, they are working on putting in meters because they suspect they lose a huge amount of water to leaks on private property that go unnoticed.
I wonder where this water usage figure for the US comes from. Is it measured on meters at their property?
And from what I hear people complain about in memes, I think parts of the US probably use a lot of water for watering lawns, something not that common here because it rains a fair amount.
Edit: lol I was trying to respond to @abcd@feddit.org but 🤷
So that’d be like 200 years of a households usage then, 30 million gallons…?
About 50 Olympic size pools. 50m x 25m x 2m
There is no simple answer to how much that amount of water actually is since different uses have different impacts. E.g. irrigation is fundamentally different from evaporative cooling. And the amount of water consumed by a household directly is miniscule compared to the goods and services that take water to provide.
If you do napkin math you will be outraged.
E.g. lawn irrigation can take up enormous amounts of water, too, with much lower benefit. Asking people to conserve water that way is probably better than shutting down data centers which do in fact render a useful service.
If you do napkin math you will be outraged.
Somebody else provided that napkin math and it had the opposite effect. Now I’m outraged how much water the average US household uses.
The useful service of taking people’s clothes off online.
Honestly, if I thought that it would help our leaders to shift focus away from the underaged human beings, I’d be more supportive.
I worry that this will work more as an enticement, especially with their love of gambling.
You can do legitimately useful things with computers and ai, even.
You being nasty is your own problem.
It’s nice to be able to use stuff for free. If you get caught, you just pay what you would have paid. If you don’t - free stuff!
Also worth noting that it wasn’t the data center running that used the water, but its construction:
The company said its water consumption was so high last year because of temporary construction-related activities, such as concrete work, dust control and site preparation.
Once operational, the company said the data centers only will use water for domestic needs, such as bathrooms and kitchens. That will total the equivalent of what four U.S. households use per month, the spokesperson said.
https://www.politico.com/news/2026/05/08/georgia-data-centers-water-00909988
Also they probably still short changed the government
QTS and the county disagreed on how long the water went unmetered, withTigert estimating about four months and QTS saying 9 to 15 months
If you did it, it wouldn’t be called “used illegally” it would be given its more traditional name of “stealing.”
I’m going to try this when on trial for shoplifting. “No. I didn’t steal it. You see, I never actually claimed ownership over the item I took. I would have given it back if they asked. I was just using it illegally!”
Yes your honor, I accidentally stole offbrand Walmart Benadryl over a hundred times, but due to how ridiculously cheap it is, it has only cost Walmart $99, which they actually gain a profit from a specific loophole they use to fuck the insurance company when it’s a pharmacy-department loss, so technically I’m an unspoken Walmart contractor, and I demand benefits!
What do you call it when you “steal” what a prostitute is selling? It’s up in that territory.
Theft of services I believe has been historically accurate…
What is HER story though? I are be so curious at the Arby’s. I vegan, so I only poopers here. I do it under the table so they don’t see for a weak. Obviously.
30 million gallons is a mistake? No, that is blatant theft.
Oopsy woopsie, AI Data Centre did a fucky wucky!
Whoopsie, I accidetawy used 30 miwion gawons of water 🥹 Can I pliz have more if I pwomise to behave?
Funny how “honest mistake” only works when you’re rich enough to call it that. 30 million gallons is insane.
We need the corporate death penalty so fucking badly…
If corporations are people, I want to see Texas execute one!
We have to be the change we want to see in the world.
Agreed! We should intentionaly start a group with the intent to find people who have been wronged to sue companies. Would require lawyers though.
Imagine a not-for-profit that exists only to help victims and exterminate companies?
In a way they do. The courts can issue a winding up order against a company, typically, but not always, because it’s bankrupt, ending the company.
It’s not a very satisfying answer, but that’s how it goes. A better ask might be “If corporations are people, I want to see one jailed”.
Can say…a citizen who sues the company, start a winding up order after it can’t pay them?
A citizen would ask the court to declare the company bankrupt and to issue a winding up order in order to distribute the business’s remaining assets to those it owes money to.
Perfect…
I used to “mistakenly” jack off in my window, just like I “accidentally” faked schizophrenia to get outta ROTC over the course of weeks, to include telling them my nonexistent sister got me pregnant, so I understand how this is possible.
Wasn’t that a Melissa Etheridge song?
Anything can be a Melissa Etheridge song if you’re persuasive enough.
I have never seen those name words before in my life. Joffrey, first of his name.
Apologies, “Cum through my window” was actually by Limp Bizkit.
That guy is a cumcatcher extraordinare! I approve!
