The Weight of Water: The Power of Water Treatment Facilities as a Backbone of the Water Ecosystem of Tomorrow

By: Gavin Mosley
Edited By: Maddie Miele

Data Centers, water scarcity, flood prevention – as we enter a new era of global ingenuity and climate uncertainty, the ways that we interact with water will become more evident, more pronounced and will require us to implement more ingenuity in our efforts to conserve it. After all, it is water. It is nature’s natural coolant and arguably the most critical chemical compound in our lives. Developing the water infrastructure that will power our future is something that cannot wait until tomorrow, in fact, with our current energy needs, it is arguably something that was needed a generation ago. When we think about our water sources, getting access to water is not as simple as turning on your tap and letting the water flow. In reality, the steps that must take place before you see a steady flow of clean usable water are synchronized in a way that often we don’t think about. The Center for Disease Control points out that water treatment, before it reaches us, encompasses five key steps¹ –

1. Coagulation, the addition of naturally occurring chemicals which binds together particles in preparation for their removal
2. Flocculation, the mixing of water to form heavier particles called flocs
3. Sedimentation, the separating of solids from water; this allows flocs to settle at the bottom of treated water
4. Filtration, the movement of water through various filters made of material such as sand to remove germs, bacteria, viruses and parasites
5. Disinfection, the addition of chemical disinfectants such as chlorine to kill the remaining germs in water that may have survived the filtration process

all completed in a coordinated waltz, before water even comes in contact with you, all made possible by water treatment facilities. Treated water isn’t just good for humans, it’s good for the systems humans use it for, and even with all of these safeguards, the Environmental Performance Index ranks the United States 26th, globally,² for the safety of its drinking water and sanitation therein. This is behind comparable nations such as Australia (25), Canada (24), Japan (17), Sweden (10) and Germany (8).³ Unsafe drinking water and unsanitary water aren’t just bad for humans, they are equally as bad for energy production. Imagine what our outcomes would be if we were able to incrementally move the United States water quality to the top twenty globally, or even the top ten? In this special contribution to the Cornell Policy Review, we will examine a few ways in which creating a new water treatment ecosystem within the United States can be key to increasing the quality and malleability of our water, while also frankly addressing the clear and dangers that stand in front of us if we are stagnate in our approach. What follows three distinct recommendations regarding ways that policy initiatives can be used to help in building out a water treatment ecosystem that helps us on all fronts, not just in the ways we consume it.

Policy Proposal 1: Municipal Recommendation to Elevate, Retain, and Reinforce Future Water Treatment Facilities Located in Disaster Prone Areas 

Mitigating Risks Before Natural Disasters Occur

This past year, we commemorated the twentieth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the largest natural disaster in United States history – one in which eighteen hundred people lost their lives and one which brought to light the multitude of ways that America’s infrastructure, especially as it relates to flood mitigation, is crumbling with each passing year. Central to the idea of flood prevention is the upgrading of water treatment facilities across the country. Much like preventative maintenance on a car via oil changes and tire rotations, our water ecosystem needs the same care – after care that has been neglected for decades. Ensuring that water treatment facilities are resilient in spite of disaster is one of the areas that we must prioritize in the coming decades as we face more natural disasters along America’s shores and will require a considerable amount of preventative maintenance. Following Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans main water plant was submerged for two weeks; its largest sewage plant, for more than a month.⁴ Understanding that even within the confines of a natural disaster such as a flood, people must have access to clean water, in essence, can guide the ways we renovate facilities, especially in disaster prone areas. Section 50501 of President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act appropriates over one billion dollars for water infrastructure projects,⁵ primarily in the American west. Utilizing funds via section 50501, municipalities can facilitate upgrades to existing water treatment systems in preparation for increased occurrences of flooding that are projected to occur over the next one hundred years due to sea level rise. Much like New Orleans, cities such as Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle and San Francisco stand to be devastated by flood events and protecting water treatment facilities could help in the elasticity of larger infrastructure systems after disasters. Post Hurricane Katrina, one of the realities that quickly set in was that barrier walls meant to protect the city’s water assets failed. By researching and implementing solutions now, risks associated with similar disasters could be vastly mitigated before sea levels force imminent mitigation at extreme costs over the next century. Ensuring that water treatment facilities are located (or relocated) in the most elevated areas of a municipality, further fortified via retention walls reinforced with concrete is not just a policy proposal that protects our most precious asset (water), but it also is one that brings immense value to taxpayers – utilizing elements of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to perfect this idea is just one policy lever one can utilize in its pursuit.

Ensuring that water treatment facilities are protected is not only necessary because of inherent risks regarding natural disasters, it’s prudent because of the water intensive industries that are sprouting up as we progress through our current century, yes, I am talking about data centers. Whether we like it or not, they are here to stay and ensuring that they cause minimal interruption to our everyday lives must be at the forefront of the minds of utility providers, municipal planners and elected officials as they work to bring these facilities online within the communities they serve. 

Policy Proposal 2: Via Zoning, Locate Proposed Data Centers Near Wastewater Treatment Facilities And Require Private Investment for Their Upgrades

Zoning Based Off Complex Realities, Not Whiplash Governance

I want to make evidently clear before we move into this segment, I am pro data center. I believe them to be a necessary evil due to our evolving dependence on things that are data dependent. But I am only pro data center in environments that have layers of regulation – one of the easiest to implement, zoning requirements. I know I will likely receive some pushback from some of our environmentally focused readers, as well as some of my colleagues for this one, but just hear me out. It benefits us all when data centers are located near wastewater treatment facilities, not drawing from the water supply we as humans need to thrive and survive. How, may you ask? Decreased reliance on freshwater sources. Earlier this year, my hometown of Memphis gained national attention due to ongoing concerns regarding a recently onboarded supercomputer that initially utilized more than 30,000 gallons of water a day,⁶ as a coolant for its massive operations. 30,000 gallons a day is, indeed, egregious, but it became a point of public contention when policy advocates brought to light that these 30,000 gallons of water were coming from freshwater supplies via underground aquifers, not from wastewater or greywater which is recycled water from activities such as washing our hands or bathing. The conversation happening in Memphis is simply a microcosm of similar conversations happening nationally – in fact, from Chesapeake, Virginia to Ypsilanti, Michigan to Tucson, Arizona, cities of varying sizes across the United States are rejecting data centers,⁷ not because they disagree with the idea of economic development from them but because of the possibility they bring regarding water supplies and many of the other quality of life concerns people have because of it. The reality is, however, the industrial titans building out the data center network across the United States understand that these supercomputers require access to copious amounts of water, refined water. Water treatment facilities have the ability to process the wastewater households and businesses utilize every day and do so in a way that ensures these data centers can be cooled, thus requiring less electricity and in tandem, less fossil fuels to power them. By implementing zoning requirements that place data centers only within proximity to waste water treatment plants and coupling this with a two pronged approach that requires data centers to only use water sourced from these plants in tandem with public-private partnerships that allow corporations to invest in the upgrades necessary for the data centers to be successful, we in essence protect two assets. Our freshwater sources via inaccessibility by corporate entities and our water treatment facilities via continued investment in the upgrades that have only been patchworked by many municipalities over the past half century.

Protecting our water assets via public private partnerships that benefit our water treatment ecosystem will require us to take some hardline stances, but are they really hardline when we consider they are for the common good? After all, many of the problems we are destined to face over the coming decades cannot be avoided; the most prevalent among them being water scarcity. Surprisingly, even in areas experiencing drought, investment in water treatment facilities can be prudent, helping not only combat strained infrastructures but also ensuring that citizens have access to clean, continually available water resources. With states, such as Colorado and Nevada, continuing to see population growth and water resources continually decreasing due to water depletion in both Lake Powell and Lake Mead,⁸ building out and expanding our water treatment ecosystem before these resources are depleted could help in ensuring that areas remain inhabitable, even post depletion.

Policy Proposal 3: Upgrading America’s Dam Infrastructure to Include Water Treatment Facilities At Reservoirs and Formation Points

Doing More With What We Have, Instead Of Building More Ecologically Straining Assets

Buried deep within the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) signed by President Biden in 2021, were multiple tools that could be used to improve the quality of the water that we interact with on a daily basis. From a water infrastructure standpoint, much of this was built off of the America’s Water Infrastructure Act (AWIA), signed into law by President Trump in 2018. Fast forward to 2025 and President Trump followed both the AWIA and the IIJA with the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which provided via provisions, tax credit extensions that are aimed at increasing dam resiliency through rehabilitation – while the O triple B was passed on party lines, all other acts mentioned were passed via bi-partisan support.⁹ Through three different administrations, we have seen an increased attention on dam infrastructure, but with water depletion becoming an ever looming reality in the American West, planning now may prevent catastrophic outcomes in the future. The Colorado River, in this respect, is an amazingly remarkable point to park on as we draw this article towards a close. In the 1960’s, the creation of Lake Powell cut the Colorado River’s natural flow to the Pacific Ocean;¹⁰ while one could argue that creation of dams have aided in this, drought, coupled with changing weather patterns and the fact that the Colorado River is considered a “losing river,”¹¹ brings us to the present reality that the reservoirs it feeds, Lake Mead, being the largest in the country, are losing its water supply year by year. This reality brings with it the sacrosanct understanding that in the future, we will have to do far more with less. This idea of doing more with less brings us back to the concept of infrastructural improvements and our water ecosystem. What we have learned in the intervening years since Hoover Dam gave us Lake Mead and Glen Canyon Dam gave us Lake Powell is that the ecological impacts of creating a dam can have long term impacts that are insurmountable. As we examine how we can renovate dams and the systems that are connected in the coming years, an unquestionable fact arises, that being that new large scale dams cannot be built in the United States, except under extreme circumstances, due to their environmental impacts. With new populations moving into areas along the Colorado River comes the intriguing possibility that because of more water usage, we could very well recycle that same water to meet our needs. With increased interest in dams, what would it look like to pump (no pun intended) some of the billions of dollars earmarked for dam expansions and renovations into water treatment facilities? Considering this, it has been argued that around 45 percent of total water goes towards creating electric power via power plants,¹² by recycling the water we use, we in essence increase its life cycle. It is worth noting that neither Lake Mead nor Lake Powell have on site water treatment facilities, thus further stressing an already taxed water system in the west. A great way of connecting this thought to practice would be rehabilitating existing dams to include massive water treatment facilities, on site. By connecting water treatment facilities to dams already in existence, we could vastly increase the efficiency of the dams in operation while also improving the quality of water flowing through them. Duly, by increasing efficiency, we are able to ensure that there is less of an environmental impact due to dams and their connected facilities.

Re-thinking the way that we do infrastructure in this nation will require us to focus on the basics of our ecology – our water, our air and our soil. There is a symbiotic relationship between all three elements and because of this, healthy water systems are inherently important to our future outcomes. Utilizing water treatment facilities and utilizing them in a way that enhances current structures, allows us to create a completely different ecosystem than the one that currently exists. From the scarcity of water in the American West, to the oncoming stress that data centers will put on our water systems and the inherent natural disasters that we can no longer escape, investing in water facilities and finding new ways to utilize them could enhance not just our ways of life, but also the ways that water impacts us within it. Light in volume, but the weight of its significance cannot be understated, especially considering the many perils that look to upend it – after all, it is…water.

Works Cited 

1. Center for Disease Control. 2024. “How Water Treatment Works.” February 6. https://www.cdc.gov/drinking-water/about/how-water-treatment-works.html
2. Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy. 2022. “Sanitation and Drinking Water.” https://epi.yale.edu/epi-results/2022/component/h2o 
3. Ibid. 
4. Chou, Ben. 2025. “Water and Wastewater Systems Are Still At-Risk 10 Years After Katrina.” August 27. https://www.nrdc.org/bio/ben-chou/water-and-wastewater-systems-are-still-risk-10-years-after-katrina 
5. Sigaran, Jaime. 2025.“Navigating the One Big Beautiful Bill Act: Three Key Provisions Impacting Water Infrastructure.” July 31. https://www.americanrivers.org/2025/07/navigating-the-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-three-key-provisions-impacting-water-infrastructure/ 
6. Chow, Andrew. 2024.“Elon Musk’s New AI Data Center Raises Alarms Over Pollution.” September 17. https://time.com/7021709/elon-musk-xai-grok-memphis/ 
7. Murphy, Ryan & Feng, Emily. 2025.“Why More Residents Are Saying ‘No’ to AI Data Centers In Their Backyard.” July 17. https://www.npr.org/2025/07/17/nx-s1-5469933/virginia-data-centers-residents-saying-no 
8. Mullane, Shannon. 2025.“The Colorado River Basin Has Operated In The Red For Most of The 21st Century. Experts Call For Broad Water Cuts, Now.” September 12. https://coloradosun.com/2025/09/12/experts-low-storage-water-cuts-colorado-river-2026/ 
9. Schnell, Mychael & Brooks, Emily. 2025.“House Passes Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ In Marathon Overnight Session.” May 22. https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5313198-house-passes-trump-big-beautiful-bill/
10. James, Ian. 2023.“A River Guide’s View of Lake Powell’s Decline And The Depths Of The Colorado River Crisis.” January 26. https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2023-01-26/colorado-river-in-crisis-the-emptying-of-lake-powell 
11. Pelz, Jen. 2024.“4 Fun Facts About the Colorado River.” July 8. https://www.grandcanyontrust.org/blog/4-fun-facts-about-colorado-river/
12. Water Resources Mission Area, United States Geological Service. 2019. “Thermoelectric Power Water Use.” March 1. https://www.usgs.gov/mission-areas/water-resources/science/thermoelectric-power-water-use

Author Bio

Professor Gavin Mosley currently teaches a course on public-private partnerships and their relationship to the global transition to clean and renewable forms of energy within the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University. Professor Mosley is an active alumnus of Cornell University’s College of Human Ecology and the campus advisor for the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity Incorporated. Professor Mosley has spent nearly fifteen years within the fields of education and public policy, most recently as a government relations professional with a multi-national corporation in the renewables and utility sector.