In recent years, a local rancher in Morrow County, Oregon, has raised serious concerns over the environmental health implications of an Amazon data center operating in the region since 2011. Jim Doherty, who has managed a cattle ranch alongside his wife for 25 years, began noticing a troubling trend: healthy adults in the community were suffering from various health issues, including cancers and other illnesses. This observation led Doherty to investigate further.
Given that Morrow County has a single aquifer supplying water to around 45,000 residents primarily through private wells, any signs of contamination warranted immediate attention. Doherty’s unease deepened when he learned about miscarriages among women and organ failures in middle-aged men in the area. Acting on his concerns, he took water samples from six random homes. The results revealed something alarming—every sample exceeded federal nitrate limits.
Doherty did not stop there. He purchased another 70 testing kits, which revealed that 68 of them failed to meet federal standards, with nitrates averaging four times above acceptable levels. His informal survey of 30 homes found that among them, there were 25 reported miscarriages and instances of residents living with only a single kidney. One particularly striking case involved a 60-year-old man who underwent surgery to remove his voice box due to a rare cancer typically associated with smokers, despite the man never having smoked.
Amazon’s data centers are under scrutiny for their impact on local water supplies. Influencing nitrogen levels in the groundwater, these facilities are said to exacerbate an already urgent pollution crisis linked to agricultural runoff. As reported, data centers can contribute to this issue by increasing the rate at which nitrogen from fertilizers enters groundwater. Amazon’s response has been defensive; the company has denied that its data center has any role in the emerging health crisis. According to an Amazon representative, Lisa Levandowski, the region’s water quality problems predate their arrival. She stated, “The truth is that this region has long-documented groundwater quality challenges that significantly predate AWS’ presence.” Levandowski emphasized that their facilities draw water from the same supply as community members, and the nitrates are not from their operations. She claimed, “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.”
This ongoing situation highlights growing tensions surrounding the increasing number of data centers across the country. As the demand for data processing rises, the potential for negative impacts on local communities also escalates. The debate over water usage and its ramifications is only expected to intensify as more facilities come online. As Jim Doherty’s findings illustrate, the situation in Morrow County raises critical questions about corporate responsibility and the broader consequences of technological expansion.
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