Data center in Pennsylvania seeks approval to discharge cooling water into Susquehanna River

Wilkes-Barre, Pa. — A data center in northeastern Pennsylvania is seeking approval from the state to discharge used cooling water into the Susquehanna River.

The facility is owned by Amazon Data Services Inc., located in Luzerne County near the Susquehanna Steam Electric Station nuclear power plant.

Amazon is requesting a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit from the state Department of Environmental Protection to discharge cooling water used to regulate the temperatures of equipment inside the data center.

According to the application, the water would be discharged on a continuous, but intermittent basis.

Amazon plans to construct a campus of 15 data centers on approximately 1,600 acres of land near the power plant in Salem Township.

The section of the river where the water would be discharged is classified as a warm water fishery by the Pennsylvania Fish & Boat Commission.

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Concerns have been raised about the temperature of the water being discharged and the impact on aquatic life and the lowering of dissolved oxygen in the river, especially during periods of low water levels.

If the discharge causes a decrease in dissolved oxygen, critics worry it could cause fish kills in the river.

The Fish & Boat Commission does provide resource specific comments to DEP permit reviewers. In a statement from the commission, the agency has not seen or reviewed any permits for water discharge from Amazon’s Salem Township data center facility.

“We do have a general concern with data center development and their use of water for cooling as well as the water needed to generate mass amounts of energy consumed by the centers,” according to a commission statement.

The Susquehanna River Basin Commission has approved a consumptive use for the data center project. The water source will be from a well on the site, and the 30-day average consumptive use is limited to 60,000 gallons per day.

Recently, Amazon filed for a modification to increase the consumptive use limit from 60,000 gallons daily to 277,000 gallons daily. The application is pending a March 12 Susquehanna River Basin Commission business meeting.

According to the river basin commission, hyperscale data centers are the newest generation of data centers and they require large amounts of water to cool their servers. Hyperscale data centers have the potential to be one of the largest consumers of water in the Susquehanna River basin, along with power plants.

Other data center projects throughout the state are also sourcing significant volumes of water to cool the facilities. The Wildcat Ridge Data Center Campus in Lackawanna County plans to use a maximum of 3.3 million gallons of water daily for its proposed 14 data centers

The daily average water usage for the project could be as low as 598,000 gallons, with higher usage rates during the summer when temperatures are hottest.

Other proposed data center campuses in Lackawanna County are considering sourcing water from Lake Scranton and possibly the existing mine pool aquifer.

As far as the Susquehanna River basin, it has approved water use for only one data center project – Amazon in Salem Township. Three others are pending the river basin commission’ approval – all located in Luzerne County.