u/Gonzos_journal

The upper potomac river is at 3 feet according to recent reports. (https://www.potomacriver.org/news/)

It is also at 3240 cfs this is slightly above the 130 year old record low of 3000 cfs. Virginia statewide is missing about 4 inches of rainfall in respect to its average. 6.4 inches below normal in the basin. April showers bring may flowers. Without the rain, we have no groundwater recharge that boosts streamflow.

“According to the U.S. Drought Monitor Map released this morning, 93% of the watershed is in severe drought conditions, an increase of 11% over last week.”

This drought and lows in the rivers are shown with the james and shenandoah as well. James river has dropped a foot since late march.
Shenandoah has apparently 10% less flow.

Meanwhile april 2026 is the 6th driest record for richmond…

Heres where i hear the usual arguments when confronted with these numbers:

1. Thats natural we are in a nationwide drought and its a perfect storm (aka coincedence)
2. Agriculture and power take more water than data centers do. Or blame another industry.
3. Its regional concentration has little to do with a national or statewide drought
4. No data that shows data centers are the cause.
5. Some dismissive quip that feeds off others ignorance

Coincedentally, ai data centers and data center alley are extremely concentrated in loudon county and along virginia. Reportedly, over 600 data centers in virginia alone. In 2023, 2.1 billion gallons were used for data centers. A 63% increase since 2019. They are apparently still waiting to release 2024 and 2025’s data from environmental agencies. I personally think this 3 year stall in data is atrocious and the numbers are so bad they wont release them yet until the damage is done. These data centers can go through over a 300,000 to 500,000 gallons per day (without transparent oversight). Or up to 5 million gallons per day. equivalent to a population of 50,000 people in a towns daily water needs. Which, i dont know how people are using 100 gallons a day per individual needs. Seems like these official numbers are a bit low.

Id like to attack the 1st argument i hear. I also find it useful to go ahead and list the worst drought years: 1930-1932, 1962-1971, 1997-2002, and 2007.

We are a couple hundred gpm away from 1930 lows. Regardless of the perfect storm, we do not need to be whicking it away on top of natural causes. That would logically cause destabilization.

To which i hear the second argument. Agriculture is overall completely irreplacable on our day to day lives. Agriculture is a contributed to the water cycle. This helps along water to reach aquifers and other necessary sources of our life water. Incentivizing data over our lives and comparing it to a biological, societal, necessity, reveals little no thought of future lives.

The third argument is obviously ridiculous. It hides behind regionality instead of understanding geology and river flow. We are showing effects statewide and thensome nationwide. Get real.

Fourth argument is simply not true, or misconstrued because there was no oversight/the data is being deliberately stalled or held back. Meanwhile we have many towns recording effects. Mind you, the flow these datacenters pull varies on peak times and get worse in the summer. To assume these citizens are lying is also an incredibly cynical take. I need not argue on that though.

(https://www.potomacriver.org/news/news-from-around-the-basin-may-22-2025/) and (https://www.potomacriver.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/WSO.May\_.25.pdf)

may 2025: potomac was in a severe drought that affected 87% of the watershed.

April 2026: we are just above 1930s historic low.

Why are we testing the waters and playing with lives? What do you think is the answer? How wrong am i?

Tldr: VA is drying up and these datacenters aint helping