Data centers in Oregon might be helping to drive an increase in cancer and miscarriages

Morrow County, Oregon is home to mega-farms and food processing plants. But it also houses several Amazon data centers. And now, some experts believe that combination is leading to an alarming concentration of nitrates in drinking water, driving up rates of cancer and miscarriages in the region.

The Rolling Stones The briefing details how Amazon, although it does not use hazardous nitrates to cool its data centers, is accelerating contamination of the Lower Umatilla Basin aquifer, which residents rely on for their drinking water. It’s a combination of poor wastewater management, sandy soil and good old physics that has led to drinking water nitrate concentrations as high as 73 ppm (parts per million) in some wells, 10 times the state limit of 7 ppm and seven times the federal limit.

According to rolling stone“Experts say Amazon’s arrival has accelerated this process. Data centers suck tens of millions of gallons of water from the aquifer each year to cool their IT equipment, which is then routed to the port’s wastewater system.” The result is that more nitrate-laden wastewater is pumped to area farms. But the porous soil quickly becomes saturated and more nitrates enter the aquifer.

This situation is exacerbated when Amazon then collects this contaminated water, which already exceeds federal legal limits for nitrates, to cool its data centers:

When this contaminated water circulates through data centers to absorb heat from server systems, some of the water evaporates, but the nitrates remain, increasing the concentration. This means that as polluted water passes through data centers and back into the sewer system, it becomes even more contaminated, sometimes averaging up to 56 ppm, or eight times Oregon’s safety limit.

Of course, Amazon disputes this narrative. Spokeswoman Lisa Levandowski said rolling stone that the story was “misleading and inaccurate” and that “the volume of water used and returned by our facilities represents only a very small fraction of the entire water system – not enough to have a significant impact on water quality.”

Levandowski also said the area’s groundwater problems “largely predate the presence of AWS (Amazon Web Services).” However, if Amazon was aware of the region’s challenges in ensuring enough clean water for its residents, it raises questions about why the company hasn’t done more to mitigate its impact or why it even chose Morrow County in the first place.

Increased nitrates in drinking water have been linked to an increase in rare cancers and miscarriages. But efforts to limit contamination and provide residents with clean, drinking water have been slow to come to fruition. The limited scope of the response and the fact that 40 percent of the county’s residents live below the poverty line have drawn comparisons to the crisis in Flint, Michigan. Kristin Ostrom, executive director of Oregon Rural Action (ORA), a water rights group, said: rolling stone“These are people who have no political or economic power and who know very little about risk.”