AI Data Centers, the Human and Environmental Impacts, and the Law

Posted on January 29, 2026

The widespread implementation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into every facet of human existence is apparent every time we open our phones or turn on our computers.  What is less evident is the tremendous amount of energy and water consumed by the data centers required to put AI into the palm of every American’s hand.  Massey Law Group’s Starlett Massey, Attorney and Founding Shareholder, recently spoke with Masheika E. Allgood, Founder of AllAI Consulting, LLC, about AI data centers, their human and environmental impacts, and the legal questions and concerns that arise from the rapid development of AI data centers.

As an AI Ethicist, you have been studying and researching the ethics of the development and usage of artificial intelligence for quite some time.  How would you describe your greatest concern regarding the rapid development of AI in this country?

My greatest concern is human survivability. Each and every one of our lives is dependent on access to clean air, clean water, and affordable electricity in our communities.  Most Americans are entirely unaware that our cities, counties, and states are trading off these basic life necessities to build the massive data centers necessary to embed generative AI into every aspect of our lives. The AI industry’s hunger for this technology is insatiable – “the number of hyperscale data centers in operation globally has doubled over the last 5 years, and is forecast to double again in 4 years.” The toll that level of build out will have on the health of everyday Americans and the survivability of our communities is incalculable. There are lots of concerning environmental impacts, but I focus largely on water and air quality.

Every AI data center has a catastrophic impact on air quality because they use diesel generators as the default backup power technology. Exposure to the fine particle diesel pollution (PM2.5), that diesel generators produce can have significant negative effects on your heart and lungs as well as negatively impacting the water systems, soil, farmland, and ecosystems for thousands of miles. While state and federal rules cap the amount of hours backup generators are allowed to run for maintenance and testing at 50 hours a year, they typically run for much longer than that. Data centers are often asked or required to shift their loads off of the grid during peak hot or cold temperatures, and that time doesn’t count against the 50-hour cap. And there is no cap on how long a data center can run its generators during a power outage. There are also states that are granting data centers permission to use diesel or natural gas generators as their primary source of power and, some data center operators who haven’t been granted that permission are exploiting loopholes in environmental regulations “and running gas powered industrial size generators 24/7.” There is no grand plan, and there are no laws in place to require data center operators to shift existing or new data centers towards more sustainable backup energy sources.

Just like communities cannot survive without clean air, they cannot survive without drinkable water. Data centers are devastating to a community’s water system. Before they’re even built, they destroy the water network that runs under the land the facility sits on through a process called dewatering. Dewatering is the pre-construction removal “of all underlying water before construction of the data center can begin.” And after destroying the spring, aquifer, or well systems on the property, which disrupts or destroys surrounding water systems, the completed facility will consume hundreds of thousands to over a million gallons of drinking water every day. No matter what kind of closed-loop cooling system an AI data center uses, it evaporates astonishing amounts of the host community’s drinking water to cool that closed loop.

In the absence of direct information from the data center operators, we’re forced to find methods to estimate the scale of the problem. It was through that process that we found that the prevailing assumptions of water consumption that are accurate for traditional data centers fail miserably when applied to AI data centers. “AI data centers have a drinking water addition that’s getting worse every day.” These are only two ways AI data centers impact a community’s water resources, arguably the least impactful ways. When you start considering the amount of water consumed to generate the terawatts of power that data centers are demanding, or the millions of gallons of ultrapure water that’s consumed to create the fleet of GPUs that the generative AI products run on, the overall cost is staggering. For example, California’s main electricity provider is estimating that it will need to generate an additional 9.6 gigawatt hours of energy to meet its data center needs. Given California’s current energy mix, generating that much power would require 50 billion gallons of water. “That’s enough water to support 166 million households, or half the US population.”

Big tech is pushing AI data center developments into communities all over the country at an unfathomable pace. Activity is everywhere, and it feels like it’s all happening without us. But it shouldn’t be. Community members have a right to know what’s happening in their communities and they, and their local government leaders need access to attorneys with the knowledge and ability to jump into these zoning, permitting, and contracting processes early so they can help communities ensure that they maintain the health of the natural resources that they rely on for their long-term survivability. And to be clear, I believe it is incumbent on attorneys to engage in this work, to some degree. “The law is a profession, with service at its foundation.”

Until members of the legal community step up to ask the right questions, is there anything an individual can do?

Yes.  It is presently up to us, individual members of our community, to show up at city and county planning, zoning, utility, and commission meetings and ask informed questions of our elected representatives.  We need to empower our elected officials to ask these data center developers legitimate, actionable questions before they vote to approve a data center proposal.  That was the reason why we created our toolkit, “Questions to ask when your city is building a data center.” In the nearly four months since we published the toolkit, we’ve gotten feedback from regular folks all across the US, and from several different countries. But I have to say that the response that made me the happiest was when I learned that a 17-year-old in Texas printed out the questions, took them to a local planning meeting, and waved them at his city officials while asking them not to vote on the proposal before them before they answered the questions. They actually deferred the vote and asked him to provide a copy of the questions for them to review. To empower a high schooler to have a real impact on an active data center discussion was… wow. Then someone pointed me to his LinkedIn profile, and he’d changed his profile picture to a picture taken of him while he was testifying, and he was waving the printed pages in the shot! Freaking awesome.

The above is intended to inform firm clients and friends about recent developments in the law, including analysis of statutes and new case decisions. This update should not be construed as legal advice or a legal opinion, and readers should not act upon the information contained herein without seeking the advice of legal counsel.