Amazon plans 1,500-foot wells beneath Missouri town for data center set to use 50 million gallons a year

Amazon's plans for a massive Missouri data center are drawing attention after new details revealed the campus could rely on wells drilled 1,500 feet underground and use about 50 million gallons of water per year.

The proposal is also fueling a broader online debate over how much water and energy the booming data center industry should consume.

What's happening?

Amazon Web Services is developing "Project Green," a 17-building data center campus in New Florence, Missouri, ABC 17 reported.

According to a report from engineering firm CDM Smith, the site would draw water from the deep Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer, with wells drilled deep enough to avoid interfering with local private wells.

Much of the attention has centered on two figures: the 1,500-foot well depth and the projected 50 million gallons of annual water use for the full campus.

The report compared the total yearly demand to that of a golf course and said each individual building would use about as much water as a restaurant.

The Cambrian-Ordovician aquifer is extensive. The formation beneath the region holds more than 23 trillion gallons of groundwater, and about 8% of it is currently being used.

Project Green would add roughly 0.03% to that usage.

Why does it matter?

Large data centers are increasingly at the center of public debate over local resources.

Even when a project uses only a small share of a large aquifer, nearby residents often want to know whether private wells, water levels, and resilience during future droughts could be affected.

In this case, monitoring cited in the report suggests the aquifer is generally stable in the region, with some wells even showing rising water levels.

One older well in New Florence has shown a slight decline over time, but, according to ABC 17, Missouri Department of Natural Resources Groundwater Section chief Scott Kaden said substantial water remains in the aquifer there.

What are people saying?

Kaden said high-yield wells like this are not unusual.

"There are a lot of high-yield wells throughout the country and throughout the state that produce a similar amount of water," he said.

He also cautioned against drawing conclusions from a single monitoring site.

"You can't just pick one spot and say that the whole aquifer is behaving like it is at this one spot," he said.

Locals have voiced opposition to the project, a sentiment held by many nationwide as data center projects rapidly expand.

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