Support CleanTechnica’s work through a Substack subscription or on Stripe.
Data centers are environmental disaster areas. Not only do they need electricity that is typically sourced from thermal generating stations powered by coal, methane, or nuclear, they also tend to suck up huge quantities of water. Many of them are located in areas where water is already in short supply. While it is true that much of that cooling water is recycled, the recycling process itself can, in some cases, further concentrate pollutants found in the source water.
According to Rolling Stone reporter Sean Patrick Cooper, that is precisely what is happening in the town of Boardman in eastern Oregon. It should be noted that the eastern part of that state is as conservative as the western part is liberal. And before readers get the impression that the Amazon data center nearby is polluting the groundwater, it is not. The groundwater is already polluted by chemicals from farming in the area. The data center simply makes that pollution worse.
The story begins thirty years ago when the town of Morrow, on the banks of the Columbia River, began expanding its port operations. That attracted agricultural development from companies that could now get their products to market cheaply and easily using new railway links.
There is only one thing all farms need, other than sunshine, and that is water. Morrow and the surrounding communities sit atop the Lower Umatilla aquifer. The Port of Morrow made arrangements to tap the aquifer for farming operations, but the soil in the area is mostly sandy and not especially well suited to growing crops. No worries. In today’s world of pesticides and fertilizers, it is possible to make what was essentially a desert bloom.
Some of the largest commercial farmers in the Pacific Northwest began operations in the area. Lamb Weston, which supplies most of the potatoes for McDonald’s french fries, came to the area, as did Threemile Canyon Farms, one of the largest dairy operators in the nation.
In 1992, the Oregon DEQ measured an average nitrate concentration of 9.2 ppm across a cluster of wells in the Lower Umatilla basin. By 2015, the average had risen 46 percent to 15.3 ppm. For some wells, DEQ found nitrate levels nearly as high as 73 ppm, more than 10 times the state limit of 7 ppm.
Millions Of Gallons Of Wastewater Per Day
Cooper writes the mega-farms and food processing plants in Morrow County send millions of gallons of wastewater to the Port of Morrow. The Port in turn pumps that water to one of several lagoons that collectively hold millions of gallons of tainted water. Those lagoons are covered with tarps that trap solids that rise to the surface. Microbes metabolize some of the solids, which creates methane gas that burns out of chimney pipes sticking up through the tarps.
“Once the solid waste has burned off, the water under the tarp is laden with residual nitrogen chemicals — the remains of the fertilizers, animal manure, and plant material. At no cost to farm operators, the Port then pumps that nitrogen-dense water back out onto the farms, where nitrogen turns into nitrates when it interacts with the soil. It is a novel recycling process that alleviates the Port’s wastewater burden and offers farms a steady flow of highly concentrated fertilized water to expand their industrial-ag footprints,” Cooper writes.
Health Issues Increase
In 2022, Jim Doherty, a rancher and member of the three-person board of commissioners for Morrow County, began hearing stories of people in the area experiencing severe medical problems, including cancer. One had to have his voice box removed because of cancer. That is not unusual among heavy smokers, but this man had never smoked.
Doherty thought he knew what was causing the medical issues — nitrates in the water. Almost everyone in the area relies on private wells sunk into the Lower Umitilla aquifer for their drinking water. Scientists believe consumption of even a small amount of nitrates can do significant harm to the human body. They can cause debilitating conditions in newborns and have been linked to increased risks of cancer.
In June 2022, he decided to collect tap water samples from six homes he chose at random and send them to a local laboratory. The lab called a few days later and explained that it was their policy to notify anyone with a sample that tested above the federal limit for the presence of nitrates in drinking water — 10 parts per million.
Doherty asked which family was going to receive the bad news about their water. He was told all six had tested positive for nitrates. He got 70 more test kits and went back out knocking on doors throughout the county. Of the 70 wells he tested, 68 showed an average concentration of nitrates close to four times the federal limit.
“When Doherty collected the water samples, accompanied by an official with the county health office, they had taken an informal survey. Talking mostly to farmhands and factory workers who were reliant on well water, they asked if anyone in their household had one or more of the known medical conditions linked to nitrate exposure. According to Doherty, within the first 30 homes they visited, they heard of at least 25 miscarriages and a half dozen people living with one kidney.” Cooper writes.
The Amazon Connection
The Amazon data centers in Morrow County may contribute to the water pollution problem. When the water is piped through the servers inside, the heat causes some of it to evaporate, which has the unintended effect of further concentrating the amount of nitrates contained in it. The water then gets sent to the Port of Morrow wastewater facility, where it gets mixed into the dirty lagoon wastewater. That so-called “process water” is then distributed to farms in the area.
Greg Pettit, who worked for the Oregon DEQ for 38 years, told Cooper, “the more water you put on [the fields], the faster you’re going to drive the nitrogen through the soil and down into the aquifer.”
For years, the local farms would spray their fields with process water even during the winter when there were no crops to irrigate. Chad Gubala is an hydrologist who managed Oregon DEQ’s oversight of the Port of Morrow’s wastewater permit from 2018 to 2022. “This idea of winter irrigation was the goofiest thing on God’s green earth,” he told Cooper.
“The farmers and the Port facility folks argued that maintaining irrigation during a non-growing season was a reasonable thing to keep the soil ‘in appropriate condition’ they called it, so it’d be ready for spring seed sowing and early growth. Well, it was functionally a load of shit, a way to maintain year-round discharge of wastewater from their facilities.” On October 30, 2025, the Port pledged to end the practice this winter.
Amazon Responds
Lisa Levandowski, a spokesperson for Amazon, told Cooper his story was “misleading and inaccurate. The truth is that this region has long-documented groundwater quality challenges that significantly predate AWS’ presence, and federal, state, and local agencies have spent years working to address nitrates from agricultural fertilizer, manure, septic systems, and wastewater from food processing plants.
“Our data centers draw water from the same supply as other community members; nitrates are not an additive we use in any of our processes, and the volume of water our facilities use and return represents only a very small fraction of the overall water system — not enough to have any meaningful impact on water quality.”
She is correct that the data center operations do not add any nitrates to the water it uses to cool its servers. As for the rest, we leave our readers to make up their own mind.
The Rest Of The Story
The Rolling Stone report is long and detailed. Basically, it tells a familiar story of local officials desperate to attract new investment to an area that was economically under-performing. The Port of Morrow pressured the county to give Amazon extensive tax breaks in order to get their business. It is the story of America — tax breaks for the wealthiest citizens and corporations while the workers struggle to buy food and pay their medical expenses. The same process it happening at the federal level at this very moment.
Amazon is correct in saying it did not cause the problem, but it certainly contributed to it. One of the factors in its decision to build in the area was access to a plentiful supply of water to cool its servers. Everything in the world of economics and business is interconnected with the environment. Amazon and the other large data center operators are not putting massive amounts of new carbon dioxide in the air to make electricity to power their operations, but at the same time they are only to happy to get their electrons from those that do.
The issue always comes down to the capitalist imperative. S&P Global estimates AI may contribute as much as $17 trillion in new economic benefits, but at what cost? If we continue treating the air, the soil, and our water supplies as toxic waste dumps for businesses, soon there won’t be any economic activity to speak of because most of the people on Earth, as well as the other species that share the planet with us, will be dead.
It is a source of constant amazement that the ultra-wealthy, who see themselves as the smartest people to ever live, cannot appreciate that they are killing the planet to satisfy their insatiable greed. There are even churches today that attract members by telling them Jesus wants them to be rich. This would be the same Jesus who evicted the money changers from the temple? That Jesus?
An economic model that prioritizes constant growth is a recipe for extinction. The events in eastern Oregon expose that fallacy in a way that cannot be ignored.
Note: The Rolling Stone report goes into great detail about the greed and ethical shenanigans of local officials and the lawsuits that have followed. Jim Doherty was voted out of office for the sin of making the nitrate problem public. Sweetheart deals between Amazon and Port officials are explored. The report offers a glimpse into how self interest and greed affect everyone, not just those at the center of the corruption. It is recommended reading if you have the time.
Sign up for CleanTechnica’s Weekly Substack for Zach and Scott’s in-depth analyses and high level summaries, sign up for our daily newsletter, and follow us on Google News!
Advertisement
Have a tip for CleanTechnica? Want to advertise? Want to suggest a guest for our CleanTech Talk podcast? Contact us here.
Sign up for our daily newsletter for 15 new cleantech stories a day. Or sign up for our weekly one on top stories of the week if daily is too frequent.
CleanTechnica uses affiliate links. See our policy here.
CleanTechnica’s Comment Policy