TL;DR · 30-second read

The Short Version

Oklahoma has about 55 data centers, the giant warehouses of computers behind apps, websites and artificial intelligence. Not one has applied for a state permit to draw water.

They buy water from local utilities like any other customer, so the state does not track how much they use. One Google site uses as much water each year as 10,000 homes, and most of it evaporates.

With a $15 billion campus proposed near Yukon in a state hit by years of drought, neighbors are asking questions developers are not yet required to answer.

None of the 55 data centers that advisory firm Baxtel lists in Oklahoma has applied for a state water permit, according to reporting by Investigate Midwest published in The Oklahoman. They buy water as customers of municipal utilities, rural water districts or industrial parks that already hold water rights, so their consumption sits largely outside state oversight. Senate Bill 259, signed by Gov. Kevin Stitt in May, allows groundwater permits for data centers only if they use water-conserving, recycling cooling systems, but it does not reach facilities that buy water instead of seeking permits.

The gap is drawing attention as Atlanta-based Beltline Energy proposes a $15 billion, 1,000-megawatt campus of 15 buildings on 480 acres straddling Oklahoma City and Yukon. Yukon is considering selling the project up to 2.5 million gallons of wastewater per day, while Beltline has requested extensions on the water agreement and has not said which cooling system it would use.

Executive Summary

Oklahoma’s newest data center water rule targets the one route data centers do not use. State permits govern taking water directly from aquifers and rivers; data centers instead contract with local suppliers. “So far, we have not had any permits issued specifically to data centers,” said Julie Cunningham, director of the Oklahoma Water Resources Board.

The practical consequence is that the decisions that determine how much water an AI campus consumes, including its volume, its source and whether it evaporates or recycles cooling water, are being made in municipal supply agreements rather than state permits. Yukon’s pending contract with Beltline is a live example.

Closing the permitting gap would not by itself produce usage data. The state relies on self-reported figures, metering requirements have failed twice, and the water board reported fewer than 20 staff in 2025. Rep. Carl Newton, the author of SB 259, says a new bill next year will address data centers drawing groundwater through a secondary source.

Why the Permit Rule Misses the Meter

SB 259 attaches a sensible condition to groundwater permits: data centers can get one only if their cooling systems are designed to conserve and recycle water. But a permit is only required when a user withdraws water itself. A data center that buys from a city, a rural water district or an industrial park holding industrial water rights is treated as an ordinary customer of that system, and the state never sees an application. That is why a statewide count of zero permits sits alongside 55 listed facilities.

The real regulatory instrument is therefore the supply contract. Google’s Pryor data center, the state’s largest, buys water from the state-owned MidAmerica Industrial Park, which draws and treats it from the Neosho River. Beltline’s Yukon purchase agreement hinges on a separate water agreement with the city. Whoever negotiates those contracts, usually a municipal utility or city council, effectively decides volume, source and whether the water is potable or treated wastewater. The state’s conservation standard never enters the room.

This matters for everyone on the supply side. City water utilities are becoming the de facto gatekeepers for AI cooling, often with small staffs and without statewide guidance. Developers face a patchwork of local terms rather than one state rulebook. And residents who want answers, like Yukon-area neighbor Pencia Truhan, who said developers “don’t have to tell us what they’re going to do about water,” find no state filing to consult.

The Cooling Choice Is Also a Power Choice

Cooling design is where water and electricity trade off. Open-loop, or evaporative, systems like Pryor’s lose water to the atmosphere: Google reports the site consumes 1.1 billion gallons a year, about the annual use of 10,000 American households, and returns roughly 275 million gallons to the Neosho River. That leaves about 825 million gallons evaporating each year. Closed-loop systems recirculate water, and air-cooled systems use little water but significantly more electricity.

For Beltline’s proposal, that trade-off lands on an unusually large base. A 1,000-megawatt campus would, at full capacity, draw roughly as much electricity as Oklahoma City’s average use and more than double the demand of Google’s Pryor facility. Choosing air cooling to spare local water would push that electricity figure higher; choosing evaporative cooling would do the reverse. Because the cooling system has not been disclosed, neither the water nor the full power burden can yet be estimated.

Yukon’s Math: Wastewater, Wells and a 2035 Deadline

Yukon’s planning memo describes selling Beltline up to 2.5 million gallons of wastewater a day, and officials have promised the project will not rely on drinking water. At full volume that is about 900 million gallons a year, comparable in scale to what Pryor evaporates annually. Using treated wastewater is a common way to spare potable supply, but the sale still commits a resource the city may want for other purposes.

The city’s supply position is already tight. Yukon relies on 15 leased wells in the Garber-Wellington Aquifer plus purchases from Oklahoma City, and those leases expire in 2035. A city-commissioned study projects its 27,300 residents will grow by about 23% over 25 years, in Canadian County, the state’s fastest-growing county. Against that, Beltline-commissioned studies project 450 permanent jobs and $543.12 million in tax revenue over 25 years, figures that potential tax abatements would significantly reduce.

Measurement Is the Harder Fix

Even a closed loophole would leave a data gap. The Oklahoma Water Resources Board relies on self-reported water use. Newton’s original bill would have required commercial groundwater users to install meters; that provision was removed after opposition from Panhandle irrigation groups, and Stitt vetoed similar legislation in 2023 after the Oklahoma Farm Bureau and others argued it infringed on private property rights.

Capacity is the other constraint. In 2025 the board reported fewer than 20 staff handling an average of 250 permit applications and amendments a year, plus investigations and fieldwork, and its 140-page Water Demand Forecast from last October does not mention data centers. Cunningham said the agency is working to build expertise. Until measured data exists, planners in a drought-stressed state are forecasting water demand without one of its fastest-growing users in the model.

Background

Data centers house the servers behind everyday online services, and the newest hyperscale facilities built for artificial intelligence concentrate enough computing to generate heat on an industrial scale. Removing that heat often uses large volumes of water, which is why cooling design has become a siting issue alongside land and power. Oklahoma already hosts one of Google’s largest facilities in Pryor, where the company outlined plans addressing power and water for new sites, and the state is drawing further proposals.

Beltline Energy, based in Atlanta, began as a renewable energy developer that secured land and developed solar projects before selling them to investors, and it is applying a similar model to data centers. It has developed more than a dozen solar farms but lists no completed data center projects. Its Oklahoma proposals, in Yukon and Oklahoma City, Piedmont and Luther, arrive as the state’s water regulator, which relies on self-reported usage data, works to develop expertise in the sector.

Sources

Source: Loophole leaves data center water consumption in Oklahoma largely untracked (The Oklahoman), on how Oklahoma data centers buy water from utilities outside state permitting, and the proposed Beltline Energy campus near Yukon.