01-40_WC_149_JUL-AUG26_PT - Flipbook - Page 5
EDITOR’S NOTE
BIG WATER
PROJECTS l POLICY l INNOVATION
DATA CENTRE CONSTRUCTION across North America is experiencing
MAY/JUNE 2026 • VOLUME 26, NUMBER 3
EDITOR
John Tenpenny
CHIEF CONTENT OFFICER
Corinne Lynds
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Connie Vitello
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Nick Krukowski
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a massive boom, driven heavily by AI. Driven by high land
costs in traditional hubs like Northern Virginia, developers are
shifting to rural locations.
Currently, there is more than $5.7 billion in active and planned
data centre projects underway across Canada, including the
recently announced $13 billion, 1-gigawatt AI data centre in Sturgeon County, north
of Edmonton being built by Meat Platforms, its first such facility in Canada.
In addition, Bell Canada is building a 300-megawatt data centre campus in Saskatchewan, while Telus is constructing two in Vancouver, including a 100-megawatt facility.
Until recently, most criticism of these centres tended to focus on their electricity
use and carbon footprints, but water use is also a cause of concern.
A new report by the UN’s University Institute for Water, Environment and
Health, based in Richmond Hill, Ont., stated that global data centres’ water footprint by 2030 will equal the basic water needs of the 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa, while their land footprint will exceed 14,500 square kilometres.
Data centres use vast amounts of water because many of them use cooling
towers for evaporative cooling to dissipate the massive amounts of heat generated
by the servers. Only a relatively small amount of the water used in the process is
recovered, though the technology is improving.
In the case of Meta’s Alberta facility, the company said an efficient cooling
system will be used to reduce water use, adding that water consumption will be
limited to fire safety and equipment maintenance.
The massive strain on local grids and water supplies is causing regulatory friction, and many towns are having second thoughts.
Recently, Hamilton City Council has narrowly defeated a proposed one-year
interim control bylaw that would have paused new AI data centre developments.
The decision stopped Hamilton from becoming the first Canadian municipality
to enact a moratorium on the rapidly expanding sector. Opponents of the pause,
including Mayor Andrea Horwath, argued that a freeze risked scaring off over $2
billion in provincial and federal technology investments. Council members also
raised concerns following closed-door legal advice that a sweeping municipal moratorium might not survive court challenges.
Councillor Nrinder Nann, who championed the supported bylaw, emphasized
that the legal defeat does not stop the urgent need for local governments to catch
up to the realities of data centre technology.
According to Nann, the central issue is that local planning codes simply aren’t
built for the digital age. Most municipal frameworks still categorize data centres
under broad “light industrial” or “warehouse” zoning.
AI isn’t only threatening to upend how we work, it may also negatively impact
our environment, including our valuable water resources. While Canada trails our
southern neighbours in embracing data centres wholeheartedly, we still have an
opportunity to weigh the trade-offs before it’s too late.
John Tenpenny is the editor of Water Canada and ReNew Canada. john@sitemediagroup.com
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