Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Morrow County, Oregon is home to massive farms and food processing plants. But it’s also home to several Amazon data centers. Now, some experts believe this combination leads to an alarmingly high concentration of nitrates in drinking water, leading to higher cancer and miscarriage rates in the region.
Rolling Stone The report details how Amazon, despite not using any dangerous nitrates to cool its data centers, is accelerating the contamination of the lower aquifer in the Umatilla Basin, which residents depend on for drinking water. It’s a combination of poor wastewater management, sandy soil, and good old-fashioned physics that has led to nitrate concentrations in drinking water as high as 73 parts per million (ppm) in some wells, which is 10 times the state’s maximum of 7 ppm and seven times the permissible limit. Federal limit.
according to Rolling Stone“Experts say Amazon’s arrival has fueled this process. Data centers suck tens of millions of gallons of water from the aquifer each year to cool their computers, which then become It is diverted into the port’s sewer system“The result is that more nitrate-laden wastewater is pumped to area farms. But the porous soil quickly becomes saturated and more nitrates make their way into the aquifer.
This is exacerbated when Amazon then siphons off this contaminated water, which has already exceeded federal legal limits for nitrates, to cool its data centers:
When that contaminated water moves through data centers to absorb heat from server systems, some of the water evaporates, but the nitrates remain, increasing their concentration. This means that as contaminated water moves through the data centers and back into the sewer system, it becomes even more contaminated, sometimes averaging as high as 56 parts per million, eight times Oregon’s safety limit.
Naturally, Amazon disputes this narrative. said spokeswoman Lisa Lewandowski Rolling Stone That the story was “misleading and inaccurate,” and that “the volume of water our facilities use and return represents only a very small portion of the overall water system — not enough to make any measurable impact on water quality.”
Lewandowski also said the region’s groundwater problems “significantly predate the existence of AWS (Amazon Web Services).” However, if Amazon is aware of the challenges the region faces in securing enough safe drinking water for its residents, it raises questions about why the company is not doing more to provide safe drinking water. Mitigating its impact Or why she chose Morrow County in the first place.
High levels of nitrates in drinking water have been associated with increased levels of nitrates Rare cancers And abortion. But efforts to reduce further pollution and provide residents with safe and clean drinking water have been slow to implement. The limited scope of the response and the fact that 40 percent of the county’s population lives below the poverty line have drawn comparisons to the crisis in Flint, Michigan. Christine Ostrom, executive director of Oregon Rural Action (ORA), a water rights advocacy group, said: Rolling Stone“These are people who have no political or economic power, and very little knowledge of the risks.”