Newsweek33%
America’s Lakes Are Shrinking. Data Centers Are Being Built Nearby 55%
By Amanda Greenwood80%
7/19/2026, 9:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 27 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Confirmation Bias, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 16.1% saturation with 215 hits. Analysis detected 1,772 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,332 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 53.2% and a BS Rank of 55% (8,532 of 18,604 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 54.10% of the article peer group.
As AI reshapes the global economy, a quieter crisis is unfolding across much of the American West: Some of the region's most iconic lakes and reservoirs are continuing to shrink.
The overlap is striking.
Many of the states leading the AI infrastructure boom—including Utah, Arizona and Nevada—are also home to some of the country's most water-stressed areas.
As companies race to build new data centers to support AI development, questions are mounting about how a water-intensive industry fits into regions already struggling with long-term water shortages.
At the center of the debate are six major Western water bodies that have experienced significant declines over recent decades:
The Great Salt Lake
The Great Salt Lake has become one of the most visible examples of the region's water challenges.
Years of water diversions, drought, and rising temperatures have caused the lake to retreat dramatically, exposing large areas of lake bed and raising concerns about ecosystem collapse and dust pollution.
"The Great Salt Lake is at the bottom of a basin with no outlets for water except evaporation," Dr.
Bonnie Baxter, director of the Great Salt Lake Institute at Westminster University, told Newsweek.
"Therefore, it only gets water from what is not used upstream in our watershed.
Any diversion of water impacts this equation."
Baxter said that the lake's recent trajectory illustrates the challenge.
"This year, for example, we got about a foot of rise in lake elevation from winter precipitation, but we lost about three feet through summer evaporation.
This is why the lake is shrinking," she said.
Scientists and state officials have warned that the lake needs substantially higher inflows to reach a healthier level.
Why Great Salt Lake Matters Beyond Utah
The consequences extend beyond the lake itself.
Baxter warned that continued shrinkage could create risks for millions of residents living along Utah's Wasatch Front.
"A dry Great Salt Lake could be devastating for the northern Utah community as 2.5 million people live downwind, and a dry lake bed can become a dust producer," Baxter said.
Because the lake is a terminal basin that accumulates materials over time, Baxter said exposed lake bed sediments can contain heavy metals and microplastics that may become airborne when conditions are dry.
"The Great Salt Lake is a canary in the climate crisis coal mine," Baxter said.
Researchers are continuing to study those risks.
Baxter said the Great Salt Lake Institute is involved in projects examining multiple aspects of the lake's decline, including dust-related impacts.
Lakes Farther South
Farther south, Lake Mead and Lake Powell—America's two largest reservoirs—remain symbols of the Colorado River crisis.
Researchers recently reported that combined storage in the reservoirs had fallen to a record low, highlighting the severity of water shortages across a river basin that supplies roughly 40 million people.
Federal officials have repeatedly warned that continued drought and overuse threaten long-term water security throughout the Southwest.
California's Salton Sea faces its own environmental challenges as shrinking water inflows expose more lake bed, while Mono Lake has long been impacted by water diversions.
Walker Lake in western Nevada has also experienced decades of decline as upstream water withdrawals have reduced inflows to the terminal lake.
Together, the six lakes illustrate a broader trend: The West is becoming hotter, drier, and more dependent on finite water resources.
AI's Expanding Footprint
At the same time, the region is becoming a focal point for AI infrastructure.
The explosive growth of artificial intelligence has sparked a new wave of data-center construction across the United States.
Policymakers should pay close attention to how that growth unfolds in water-stressed regions, according to Greg Pierce, director of the UCLA Water Resources Group.
Pierce told Newsweek that "data centers are big industrial customers of water systems, and their demands can be significant and even harmful or overwhelming locally."
He said: "Water systems tend to be much smaller than energy utilities, so they can have more of a relative impact on a system's demand even if the absolute numbers are lower."
Pierce said questions remain about how much promised water reuse by operators will ultimately reduce pressure on local supplies.
According to Brockovich Data Center Reporting, water usage is one of the key concerns associated with AI facilities.
Cooling systems can require substantial amounts of water and may place additional strain on local supplies and ecosystems.
It also highlights broader concerns about energy consumption, noise, infrastructure demands, and environmental impacts.
Utah offers perhaps the clearest example of the tension between economic development and water conservation.
Even as state leaders pursue efforts to restore the Great Salt Lake, the state has also attracted a growing number of data-center projects driven by AI demand.
Since 2021, at least 15 new data-center buildings or campuses have been announced or developed in Utah, according to reporting by Grist.
Two are situated very close to the Great Salt Lake.
Baxter emphasized that any increase in water consumption upstream ultimately affects terminal lakes such as the Great Salt Lake.
"Using more water upstream means even less inflow," Baxter said.
"The pressures of climate change, with warmer temperatures increasing evaporation, compound the problem."
Environmental advocates argue that the rapid expansion of AI infrastructure deserves closer scrutiny in states already struggling to balance competing water demands.
The National Wildlife Federation has warned that data-center water demand is increasing in regions facing drought and groundwater depletion, while transparency regarding water use remains inconsistent across the industry.
At the same time, Pierce cautioned against overstating the role of data centers in the region's overall water crisis, saying data center water consumption is "not very significant compared to agriculture and a few other big users in terms of quantity," adding that "overall water use is not really the concern for the West as a whole, although every drop counts when we have none to spare."
Instead, Pierce said the most significant impacts are often local, where a large facility can place new demands on smaller municipal water systems.
Local Impacts May Matter More Than Regional Totals
While data centers may represent a relatively small share of total Western water consumption, Pierce said local governments should closely evaluate how proposed facilities affect nearby communities.
"Actual availability of water and how data-center demand will impact other users should be considered," he said.
"The timing of demand can be a concern, though, as data-center demand is more about peaking."
Pierce also said officials should consider potential water-quality risks if facilities aren’t properly connected to local infrastructure or if waste enters groundwater systems.
A Growing Collision
The issue isn’t simply about technology versus conservation.
AI is expected to play a major role in economic growth, scientific research, and national competitiveness.
Industry leaders argue that newer facilities are becoming more efficient and that some data centers use advanced cooling systems designed to reduce water consumption.
But as the AI race accelerates, the geography of development increasingly overlaps with some of the country's most vulnerable water systems.
Pierce argues that policymakers need more transparency about data-center resource consumption.
"States and related advocates are right to demand reporting and transparency in this space," he said.
"Data centers should be required to report water and energy use to relevant state regulators and be fined if they do not."
As AI infrastructure continues to expand across the West, Pierce said better reporting will be essential for communities attempting to balance economic development with long-term water sustainability.
From the shrinking shores of the Great Salt Lake to the historically low levels of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the signs of water stress are already visible across the West.
The simultaneous expansion of AI-related data centers has created a new challenge for policymakers: How to support the technologies of the future without placing additional strain on already-stressed water resources.
The result is a growing convergence of two defining American stories—an escalating water crisis and the race to dominate the AI era.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Ben Kelly and Tony Phillips
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