Atlanta City Council is weighing a new rule that would force data centers connected to the city's municipal water system to stop using drinking water for routine cooling and switch to closed-loop systems instead. Councilmember Antonio Lewis brought the ordinance to the latest council meeting, arguing that requirements should be written directly into permits issued by the Department of Watershed Management for both new and existing facilities.
The proposal would prevent data centers from tapping potable water for everyday cooling operations, according to 95.5 WSB, which first reported that the requirements will be considered by the Atlanta City Utilities Committee. The station describes the story as still developing, with council members continuing to weigh how the rule would be enforced. The push comes as metro Atlanta has become the second-largest data center construction market in North America, trailing only Northern Virginia, with more than 1,890 megawatts of capacity currently under construction, according to the Metropolitan North Georgia Water Planning District.
Why Closed-Loop Cooling Matters
The distinction between cooling technologies is stark. Traditional evaporative systems can consume up to 9 million gallons of water a day while losing as much as 80% of it to the atmosphere, while closed-loop systems limit daily consumption to under 100,000 gallons, per the water planning district's technical documentation. State water planning officials testified in mid-2025 that a single large-scale evaporative facility can use as much water per day as the entire municipal demand of cities like Marietta or Valdosta, according to reporting from The Current.
Those figures help explain why Atlanta officials are reaching for permitting tools rather than waiting on the state. Governor Brian Kemp vetoed House Bill 1192 in May 2024, a measure that would have paused state sales tax exemptions for data centers, keeping the tax breaks intact through 2031 even though a state audit found the incentive returns only 24 cents for every dollar exempted, the Sierra Club noted in its response to the veto. With that statewide subsidy still in place, cities including Atlanta have turned to local zoning and watershed permitting to slow or shape growth.
The Council's Broader Data Center Push
Lewis's cooling ordinance isn't the only data center measure moving through City Hall this month. On August 11, the Atlanta City Utilities Committee approved a resolution sponsored by Councilmember Kelsea Bond to form a 23-member Data Center Task Force charged with studying impacts on municipal water supplies, grid capacity, ratepayer costs, and noise. But on August 17, the council stalled that task force resolution after Mayor Andre Dickens' office announced its own separate administrative strategy group on data centers, according to Rough Draft Atlanta, creating friction over which branch of city government will ultimately steer policy.
Lewis himself brings a complicated history to the cooling debate. He previously sponsored legislation seeking a special zoning exemption that would have allowed a $500 million Digital Realty data center near the West End MARTA station in Adair Park, a push that drew fierce neighborhood pushback and repeated legislative delays, as reported by Capital B Atlanta. That earlier fight unfolded against the backdrop of Atlanta's own 2024 zoning restrictions: Ordinances 24-O-1218 and 24-O-1222 established a formal city definition of data centers and banned new facilities within the BeltLine Overlay District or within 2,640 feet of high-capacity transit stations, according to the Atlanta City Council.
A Regional Pattern of Pushback
Atlanta's cooling mandate lands amid a wider regional reckoning with data center growth. Surrounding jurisdictions including DeKalb, Clayton, and Coweta counties, along with the city of Roswell, have enacted moratoriums or tightened regulations in 2025 and 2026 to limit data center land, power, and water use, The Cool Down reported. Hoodline has tracked Roswell's own freeze on new approvals while officials there study resource impacts, and covered how Lovejoy withdrew a 3.5 million-square-foot proposal after resident backlash.
Community advocates have also questioned the economic case for hosting these facilities. Findings from the Atlanta Regional Commission show that data centers generate significantly fewer permanent jobs per acre than other commercial or industrial developments, offering host neighborhoods relatively little long-term employment in exchange for their outsized draw on water and power, Rough Draft Atlanta reported. That imbalance has become a recurring theme in neighborhood opposition across the region, from Cobb County to Fayette County.
For now, the fate of Lewis's cooling ordinance remains unresolved as the Atlanta City Utilities Committee continues to weigh it alongside the stalled task force resolution and the mayor's competing strategy group. The story is still developing, and it is not yet clear how the jurisdictional dispute between the council and Mayor Dickens' office will be settled, or what shape any final water requirements will take.
