QTS used nearly 30M gallons in Georgia, prompting backlash

Quality Technology Services used nearly 30 million gallons of water in Douglas County, Georgia, during construction from January 2025 through April 2026, county records show. The usage was disclosed May 8 and the company received a retroactive bill of $147,000 for construction-period water, a charge that amounts to about $0.005 per gallon and covers water used before the facility began operations. Local residents were under drought-related water restrictions at the time.

QTS announced on March 13, 2026 plans for a development of 16 buildings across 615 acres. The project is part of two data center campuses that together would total 6.6 million square feet in Douglas County.

Douglas County has attracted data centers and more than a dozen cryptocurrency mining operations, driven by available land and comparatively low energy costs. Residents raised concerns that the large unbilled volume was identified only after it became public while homeowners were asked to limit water use.

A December 2025 regional report noted that data centers and crypto mining can require substantial water and energy and estimated that data centers could account for up to 10 percent of some local water supplies. A 2025 estimate placed annual water use for Bitcoin mining between 591 billion and 2 trillion gallons globally.

Since January 2026, experts have flagged growing public scrutiny of water and energy use by large computing facilities. North Carolina has enacted moratoriums on certain operations. After the QTS billing disclosure, county officials and state regulators received questions about how construction-period water is monitored, billed and permitted.

The $147,000 retroactive bill is small relative to the scale of QTS’s planned development. County records, regulatory filings and public comments remain the primary sources for ongoing inquiries about monitoring and billing practices.