Austin just voted to write rules that could keep AI data centres out
The city council vote was unanimous. Behind it sits a number most people never see: the power plants feeding America's data centres pull about 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater a year.
On Thursday, Austin's City Council voted unanimously to start drafting rules that could restrict or exclude new data centres inside the city. Not a study, not a task force — instructions to write the code.
What tipped it was a study by Ceres. It looked at the power plants supplying electricity to data centres in seven states: Virginia, Texas, California, Illinois, Georgia, Ohio and Arizona. Those seven hold roughly half the country's data centres. Together, the plants withdraw about 3.4 trillion gallons of freshwater a year — 10.4 million acre-feet. California's entire urban water demand averages 8 million acre-feet. Put another way: about 12 times what Los Angeles, Phoenix and Washington, D.C. use in a year, combined.
Anyone who has ever argued with a landlord about a utility bill, and anyone about to sign a lease near an industrial lot that is quietly being rezoned. It also lands on people in their twenties choosing where to move for work: data centres are pitched as jobs and tax base, and the towns saying no are betting the water matters more. And on the 37 Americans detained at data centre protests this year — for some people this stopped being a policy question a while ago.
Austin's council is expected to take up the first phase of the ordinance in December. That is the date to watch: the definition of what counts as a data centre, and what safeguards get attached. Everything before December is drafting.
Maine's legislature approved what would have been the first statewide moratorium on large data centres in April. The governor vetoed it. Cities keep winning these fights; states keep hesitating. Which level of government blinks first will decide whether this stays a map of local no-go zones or becomes something bigger.
Sources: Decrypt, Aug 28, 2026 — "US Cities Eye AI Data Center Limits as Study Flags Water Risks" (Jason Nelson); Ceres study cited therein; statements from Kristen James (Ceres) and Kaiba White (Public Citizen).
Счёт за ИИ приходит не только деньгами: власти городов начинают запрещать стройку дата-центров, потому что энергоблоки для них выкачивают миллиарды тонн питьевой воды рядом с жильём людей.
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