A plan to build a Google data center that will use millions of liters of water a day has enraged Uruguay, which is suffering its worst drought in 74 years.
The water shortage is so severe that a state of emergency has been declared in Montevideo and authorities have added salty water into public drinking water supplies, causing widespread protests.
Critics, who call it "plundering", argue that the government is prioritizing water for multinationals and agribusinesses at the expense of its own citizens. Daniel Peña, a researcher at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, told the Guardian: “Only a small percentage of water in Uruguay is used for human consumption. Most of it is used for large agricultural industries such as soybeans, rice and wood pulping. Now we have Google”
7,6 million liters of water per day to cool the servers
The tech giant bought 72 hectares of land to build a data center in Canelones, southern Uruguay. The center will use 7,6 million liters of water a day to cool its servers, an amount equivalent to the daily household consumption of 55.000 people, according to figures from the Ministry of the Environment. The water will come directly from the public drinking water system, according to Peña.
Uruguay's industry ministry says these figures are out of date because the company is revising its plans and the data center will be "smaller in size".
In a statement, Google said the hub will serve them users of Google around the world, processing requests for services such as YouTube, Gmail and Google Search. “The Uruguay data center project is still in an exploratory stage and Google's technical team is actively working with the support of national and local authorities. We expect that preliminary calculations (such as projected water consumption) will undergo adjustments. At Google, sustainability is at the core of everything we do, and the way we design and manage our data centers is no exception."
Tips for bottling
Extremely low levels of rainfall and record high temperatures have left Uruguay's main reservoir dry and rivers empty. To make up for the shortage, public water authorities have begun taking water from the Río de la Plata estuary, where seawater mixes with fresh water, causing tap water to taste salty.
Το νερό της βρύσης με τη δυσάρεστη γεύση έχει προκαλέσει σάλο σε μια χώρα που έχει το υψηλότερο κατά κεφαλήν ΑΕΠ στη Νότια Αμερική και ήταν το πρώτο κράτος στον κόσμο που ανακήρυξε την access στο νερό ως συνταγματικό δικαίωμα.
The government has doubled the allowable levels of sodium chloride in tap water and is advising pregnant women and people with serious medical conditions not to drink it.
Parents have been told to make baby formula with bottled water and not to add salt to children's food.Uruguay's president, Luis Lacalle Pou, announced emergency measures such as lifting taxes on bottled water and distributing two liters ) of free water per day to 21.000 poor or vulnerable families. It has also promised to build a new tank within 30 days.
But public outrage remains.
Fortunately, we abolished plastic straws and replaced them with paper ones (which melt in 5-6 minutes when put in coffee, soft drink) and thus we save the planet...