Google’s Botetourt data center campus may use 8M gallons of water daily

Initially, Google will require no more than 2 million gallons of water per day at the data center campus the tech company is planning for Botetourt County, according to a utility services funding agreement signed with the Western Virginia Water Authority in October.

As it grows, however, that need could increase to 8 million gallons per day, according to the agreement. According to a separate document, a water supply and infrastructure planning and development services agreement, the authority will provide a water capacity of 2 million gallons daily “on or about” Jan. 1, 2028.

Last summer, Botetourt County announced Google had purchased a 312-acre parcel at the Botetourt Center at Greenfield industrial park for about $14.06 million. The tech behemoth is expected to spend at least $3 billion on the planned data center project. Google additionally pledged to give $4 million over the next five years to support community projects in Botetourt, which encompasses Roanoke suburbs and rural farmland.

Data centers typically require water to cool equipment.

The Western Virginia Water Authority, a utility that provides drinking water to customers in the city of Roanoke and the counties of Roanoke, Franklin and Botetourt, provided in December 2025 a copy of the utility services funding agreement to Virginia Business. However, the amount of water Google expected to use was redacted. In an email, Mike McEvoy, the authority’s executive director, stated the information was provided to the authority voluntarily by a business which had been promised confidentiality.

On Wednesday, however, an unredacted copy of the agreement could be found on the utility’s website.

Henri Gendreau, founder and editor of independent news site The Roanoke Rambler, filed a case against Mike McEvoy, the authority’s executive director, on Oct. 9, 2025, in Roanoke Circuit Court. According to The Rambler’s reporting, Gendreau maintained the information should be disclosed under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which is designed to ensure ready access to public records.

On Nov. 5, 2025, Roanoke Circuit Court Judge Leisa Ciaffone found that the water use information was not proprietary and ordered the water authority to release the full copies of two agreements related to the project, The Rambler has reported.

On Friday, the Virginia Court of Appeals declined to hear a request to stay Ciaffone’s ruling on the release of the unredacted documents.

“The appeals court ultimately declined to continue the stay so in accordance with the circuit court decision we published the documents,” McEvoy wrote in an email Thursday. 

Gendreau was pleased with the outcome.

“As we argued in court last fall … the government shouldn’t consider this information to be proprietary under Virginia FOIA, and so it’s nice to see that the records are now in the public domain,” he said Thursday.

On Wednesday, the Southwest Virginia Data Center Transparency Alliance, a grassroots group formed to oppose the project, issued a statement thanking The Rambler for going to court for the data.

“We are outraged that 2-8 million gallons of drinking water per day may be used for this project that benefits a single private company,” the statement reads.

The utility services funding agreement with the water authority lists Helio Capital, a limited liability company formed in 2024, as the owner of the land where Google plans to build the data center campus.

A copy of a June 2025 performance agreement between Botetourt County and Helio Capital states that the company “is a firm in the business of acquiring, developing, and thereafter owning and operating, itself or in collaboration with its affiliates, data centers.”

Google plans to build three data center buildings — totaling about 921,000 square feet — and three substations, according to documents the company filed in January as part of a permit application with the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.

The scope of the project detailed in the state application means Google will invest at least $3 billion and hire no fewer than 150 employees at a median salary of at least $86,000 per year if the first data center building is completed by 2030, according to the terms of a performance agreement between Botetourt County and Google.

The Western Virginia Water Authority formed in 2004, the result of the City of Roanoke and Roanoke County discussing ways to collaborate on water and sewer issues following a drought. Franklin County joined the water authority in 2009, and Botetourt followed in 2015.

McEvoy has publicly stated the water authority currently has enough water to serve the planned Google data center. However, the Roanoke Valley will likely need a new water source by 2060.

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct information regarding the scope of the request to the Virginia Court of Appeals.