Nebraska wants data centers to come clean about water usage

Nebraska has passed a new law requiring data centers to report their annual water use and power demand to the state. Right now, the state doesn't even have an official count of how many data centers operate in Nebraska, and the only water-use figures available come from companies willing to share them voluntarily. Google reported its Nebraska data centers used about 732 million gallons of water in 2025, a number it expects to grow. Meta's data center in Sarpy County withdrew between 26.7 million and 37.5 million gallons a year from 2020 to 2024.

Data centers need water to keep servers and buildings cool. Some cooling systems evaporate large amounts of water, while "closed loop" systems recycle water or coolant and can go years without needing more, though they typically use more electricity, which has its own water footprint. Google says it chooses cooling methods based on local water availability; Meta's Sarpy County facility uses a mix of both approaches.

The bigger concern in Nebraska, an agricultural state where most water goes to irrigation, is that data centers are increasingly being built in suburban and rural areas, some of which already face water shortages or drought. State officials say the new reporting law is a first step toward understanding those risks better, though it doesn't change how much water any individual data center can use. For homeowners, the main effect for now is more public information about local water demands, not new rules on household water or energy use.