[HN Gopher] Feds demand compromise on Colorado River while state...
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Feds demand compromise on Colorado River while states flounder
Author : mooreds
Score : 32 points
Date : 2025-12-22 21:03 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nevadacurrent.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nevadacurrent.com)
| jmclnx wrote:
| What make this fun are many chip and data centers have been
| building plants in those areas, and the plants require lots of
| water for manufacturing and cooling.
|
| How about building these plants in areas with plenty of water.
| Many places located to these areas (Arizona) due to their lax
| labor and environmental laws.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| > How about building these plants in areas with plenty of water
|
| That's the problem. There aren't that many areas with plenty of
| water.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| There are in the US, those places just have more hostile
| legislatures and regulatory regimes that make construction
| impossible. See the debacle around the Foxconn Wisconsin
| project which happened under a very industry friendly
| governor. The great lakes are has nearly infinite water, and
| cold aim all winter. What they don't have is the ability to
| build anything.
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| As someone in Indiana that is fighting tooth and nail to
| keep datacenters out (they don't bring jobs, taxes, or
| revenues and eat up very valuable resources), I say if you
| want to build here, then move your HQ and 10s thousands of
| high paid workers here.
|
| Otherwise... go pound sand.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| How does the data center "eat resources"? Discharged
| water will stay in the watershed and it rains back down
| on you. As long as they aren't drawing directly out of
| the aquifer without putting it back then its fine. How do
| they not bring tax revenue? Do you not have property
| taxes? Maybe go lobby for those then.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > How does the data center "eat resources"?
|
| Money is a resource. Someone has to deal with the utility
| rate hikes that tend to follow large new consumers - even
| when the AI bubble bursts in a few years, the electricity
| prices will stay high (or in the worst case, get even
| higher) because the utility needs to recoup its
| investments.
|
| > How do they not bring tax revenue? Do you not have
| property taxes? Maybe go lobby for those then.
|
| Forgot the /s? Seriously, property taxes are a joke
| because the "wealth" generated by the datacenters is
| absurdly high compared to their property lot size. If you
| were to extract the appropriate amount of taxes to cover
| for the costs, you'd have to raise them so high that
| you'd strangle the entire rest of your local economy. And
| stuff like we have here in Europe, taxing corporate
| profits, is not applicable as well because the profit is
| officially being made at some Delaware site (or Ireland
| in our case), not at some random datacenter.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > Money is a resource. Someone has to deal with the
| utility rate hikes that tend to follow large new
| consumers
|
| It seems like new power generation should be a trivial
| concern, the upper Midwest is incredibly windy. The block
| to adding new generation is mostly antiquated local/state
| laws about connecting to the grid interchange. It's
| within local power to fix that. It's the power company
| lobbying against more cheap energy that causes prices to
| rise. Point your anger at the people sitting in the way
| of more capacity not the people wanting to use power.
|
| > Forgot the /s? Seriously, property taxes are a joke
| because the "wealth" generated by the datacenters is
| absurdly high compared to their property lot size.
|
| Then assess them on that basis. Property tax isn't a
| function of square feet, you can assess it on the basis
| of economic value. Property tax is a local issue, just
| vote to change the law.
| mothballed wrote:
| Gary Indiana had a massive infrastructure for cooling and
| water diversion for their mega steel industry.
| Electricity already in place, again for steel industry,
| and anything it would sink would be a drop in the bucket
| of the Chicago metropolitan area (so Illinois would eat
| much of the externalities of whatever hypothetical minor
| price increase of electricity) grid that it's connected
| to and likely far less than they were using for their
| steel jobs.
|
| Probably best to just let it stay an industrial wasteland
| shithole rather than put datacenters there.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > Probably best to just let it stay an industrial
| wasteland shithole rather than put datacenters there.
|
| That seems to be the attitude unfortunately.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| If adding a datacenter to a locale is not a net gain for
| the locale, you're failing to charge appropriately for
| things you should be charging for.
|
| I'm sure there have been some datacenters that have tried
| to use "brings in jobs" incentives, and that could
| certainly go wrong if the incentives aren't designed
| correctly (e.g. proportional to the actual number of
| jobs), but as long as there aren't incentives being
| abused, a datacenter should be a net win.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yeah seriously. If you're going to fight. "tooth and
| nail" against a data center, maybe reevaluate and direct
| your energy towards some productive like better tax laws,
| more energy generation, and so on.
| scheme271 wrote:
| The water in the great lakes is controlled by an
| international compact that prevents water from being
| diverted from the Great Lakes to other watersheds. So,
| water utilization from the Great Lakes is constrained. The
| Wisconsin Foxconn project was a PR thing on both sides.
| Foxconn started scaling back it's promises and construction
| almost immediately after the agreement was signed. Scott
| Walker needed good PR and promised huge tax credits without
| much in the way of assurances.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > The water in the great lakes is controlled by an
| international compact that prevents water from being
| diverted from the Great Lakes to other watersheds.
|
| Who said anything about diverting it? Pump cold water
| out, store hot water until it cools to ambient temps,
| then dump it back in the lake.
|
| > Scott Walker needed good PR and promised huge tax
| credits without much in the way of assurances.
|
| Yeah, this is my point, the state wasn't actually
| prepared to see the deal through despite nominally being
| industry friendly vs Arizona where they have some follow
| through.
| janice1999 wrote:
| There's a Microsoft datacenter being built on the proposed
| Foxconn site and it will use 8.4 million gallons of water
| per year, so I guess industry got its way eventually?
| dmurray wrote:
| What, it will use as much as a small village or
| subdivision? As much as 80 average US households? That
| doesn't seem noteworthy at all.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| > 8.4 million gallons of water per year
|
| That is <10% of the amount of water required to grow corn
| on the same land as the data center. Acre for acre, data
| centers consume a tiny fraction of the water consumed by
| agriculture.
|
| Are the corn subsidies to produce high-fructose corn
| syrup and ethanol that important?
| Peretus wrote:
| For folks like me who are trying to visualize 8.4 million
| gallons of water:
|
| Quick back-of-the-napkin suggest that it's about as much
| as would fit in a round pool just under 500ft (~150
| meters) across, 6ft (1.8 meters) deep.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Whenever I hear water measured in gallons instead of acre
| feet, I know someone is trying to exaggerate the amount.
|
| East of the Rockies this is an unnoticeable amount of
| water.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| East of the rockies suffers from the problem of water
| being so unlimited nobody paid it any attention and let
| the desert states let federal policy reflect their
| problems and priorities to their detriment.
| chickenbig wrote:
| > 8.4 million gallons of water per year
|
| 8.4M US gal/year * 3.785 US gal/litre / (365 _24_ 60 *
| 60) = 1 litre per second.
|
| Put another way, if the average US household uses 138 US
| gal/day [0] then this is 8.4M / 365 / 138 = 168 average
| households.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residential_water_use_i
| n_the_U...
| phkahler wrote:
| >> The great lakes are has nearly infinite water...
|
| No they do not. The flow there is already balanced, and
| lake levels are lower than usual.
|
| New York already added another tap for electric generation
| about 12ish years ago, and IMHO it has had an effect.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > No they do not. The flow there is already balanced, and
| lake levels are lower than usual.
|
| You aren't going to meaningfully drain the lakes to cool
| chip fabs when the vast majority of that water will
| simply go back into the lake either directly or via the
| water cycle. It's not going to run off the land and into
| a river like with flood irrigation or similarly
| irresponsible water uses. The entire global chip industry
| today uses less water than the city of Hong Kong.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Genuine question: why not build them in Alaska? It has plenty
| of cold.
| scheme271 wrote:
| It's also pretty tough to get good high bandwidth
| connectivity there and the power infrastructure that can
| produce enough power to run a datacenter.
| chickenbig wrote:
| > good high bandwidth connectivity
|
| Also the speed of light might be a bit slow.
| tacomeow wrote:
| An excellent contemporary book was written about this by Zak
| Podmore called Life After Deadpool:
| https://www.torreyhouse.org/life-after-dead-pool
|
| I just finished reading it and can highly recommend it. Zak's
| writing is enjoyable and refreshing.
| almog wrote:
| Thanks, will add it to my reading list while I'd also recommend
| the classic on that topic, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner.
| Hansenq wrote:
| Water allocation in the American West has been a mess ever since
| the beginning, when Prior Appropriation was decided as the way to
| claim water rights. Essentially, the first person to put a claim
| of water into "beneficial use" gets those rights.
|
| This is why you see California with such a large share of the
| Colorado River's water rights, even though it "touches" the river
| the least: they were the earliest fast-growing state to "use"
| that water. And that's why you see so many water-hungry crops
| being grown in the West--the owners have the rights already, and
| to them, if they don't use it, they'll lose it.
|
| So any agreement here needs to make a compromise between states,
| the federal government, prior settled law, and owners with
| effectively "free" water that don't want it taken away from them.
|
| It's a complicated issue, but one step would be to force private
| owners of water rights to list their rights on an open market
| (right now some owners of water rights, like the Imperial
| Irrigation District can choose to never sell them). At least that
| way you can start the conversation somewhere.
|
| (In fact, John Wesley Powell, namesake of Lake Powell, argued
| strongly against "prior appropriation" before the area was even
| settled, and instead argued against a collective approach to the
| limited and volatile amount of freshwater. He did not succeed.)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wesley_Powell#Environment...
| Veserv wrote:
| You do not even need to force water rights owners to list their
| rights on the open market. They already want to, it is just
| illegal for them to sell their water rights (separate from
| their land) to entitys with more productive uses of the water.
| username223 wrote:
| That's not a solution, either. See William Mulholland buying
| up the water rights in the Owens Valley to feed Los Angles,
| thus turning Owens Lake into toxic dust that is costing $1
| billion and counting to manage. Mulholland is long dead, and
| we're just getting started paying for that.
|
| Water rights in the West are hard, and we've known that since
| John Wesley Powell was in charge, as a nearby commenter
| explained. The Colorado was divided up during an unusually
| wet year a long time ago, and rising demand and falling
| supply have only made things worse ever since.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| > force private owners of water rights to list their rights on
| an open market
|
| You don't need to force them, they've done it for decades to
| the extent it is allowed. I've owned titled water rights in
| Nevada. They are worth something but not nearly as much as many
| people likely assume.
|
| Nevada has additional complications due to the structure of the
| aquifers. It is difficult/impossible to move water from where
| it is to where it may be needed.
| bb88 wrote:
| If you look at water usage in Nevada, 75% of it goes to
| agriculture [1]. Agriculture provides a lot of jobs and food.
| Unfortunately the resources are no longer there. You can
| eliminate landscaping (yards, golf courses, las vegas fountains,
| etc), but it still won't make a dent in the water use.
|
| It's not just Nevada, but Nevada is the poster child here for
| everything that's gone wrong with water use.
|
| So something's gotta give. And it turns out that farming in
| deserts may not have been the best use of the land (or water).
|
| [1] https://extension.unr.edu/publication.aspx?PubID=4764
| mothballed wrote:
| The Desert Land Act under which a lot of desert land was
| claimed (and, the only remaining way I know of state land can
| still privately be claimed) only gave it to you if you
| established irrigation and agriculture.
|
| The government basically asked for it, and then made it the
| only way to get much of the land. And now of course, many heads
| in government now complaining about the evil private land owner
| who did the thing the government asked for and precondition.
| Tostino wrote:
| Yay, they own the land. A hundred plus years later, I don't
| see why the descendants (or corporate owner) should have the
| same water rights now after things have changed. Don't strip
| them of the land...but something has to give.
| mothballed wrote:
| Yes that could be done via eminent domain of their water
| rights. The only note would be that since the value of
| especially the more rural desert land is tied almost
| completely to acreage times water rights per acre, it's
| basically a full buyout of the entire non-residential rural
| desert due to the takings clause. I don't know how much
| it'll cost, but it will be a lot.
|
| >A hundred plus years later
|
| I know of people still investing large sums today to claim
| under the Desert Land Act. It's still active. They need to
| establish irrigation and usually drill/share a well (maybe
| hauling could work but you have to show it's economically
| viable), and establish that over a multi year proof process
| the viability of the land. Just harder than it used to be.
| So to be clear it might be someone from yesterday, although
| it's just less common. I'm not sure if the takings clause
| would cover them though, as they don't technically own it
| until the proof process is complete, so for them it'd
| probably merely just be a total loss.
| cyanmagenta wrote:
| > water rights per acre
|
| Is that actually taken into account in a taking? I
| haven't thought about this stuff in decades, and I know
| there is some weirdness with regulatory takings.
|
| Another way to frame the question: if the government just
| changes the water rights per acre, does that itself
| trigger the takings clause?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| It depends on the type of water right (there are many
| kinds). The State has the ability to effectively recall
| some water rights. True titled rights would be a taking.
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| Nevada gets 4% of the water in the first place. Almost all of
| that 4% goes to Ag and mining as you said. The things people
| use as "the poster child" like fountains and golf courses are
| rounding errors.
| uoaei wrote:
| Here's a question, why are we putting all those resources and
| efforts into farming _in a desert_?
| bell-cot wrote:
| Desert land was cheap. Water _seemed_ plentiful and cheap.
| And back when the system was set up, doing that looked like
| "Progress".
| jameslk wrote:
| I'm not sure why Nevada is always brought up when mentioning CO
| river usage but Nevada uses the _least_ amount of water out of
| all states:
|
| https://www.snwa.com/water-resources/where-water-comes-from/...
|
| For indoor usage in Las Vegas for example, it recycles 99% of
| it:
|
| https://lvgea.org/water/
|
| Using water in the desert is a problem, but you should point to
| CA or AZ as poster children of abuse for that
| metalman wrote:
| we can go back to Leonardo Davinci(and further), to how Davinci
| was promised the income from a certain amount of flow from a
| river as a payment for services rendered, and as an ongoing
| retainer and support, but how in his own note books he laments
| how he had been strung along and never given anything amingst the
| wranglings of those "better conected". there is nothing more
| provocative to the mindlessly greedy people in the world than a
| resource, just, JUST!, LAYING THERE! for which the French created
| "the argument that ends all discussion"
| kayo_20211030 wrote:
| Spellcheck?
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