Data centers and water
Data Center Water Use in Arapahoe County, CO
Arapahoe County, Colorado has 15 mapped data center facilities, including AWS, carrying about 102 MW of estimated power load.
Water pressure for new demandHow hard a large new water user, like a data center, would press on this county's water. It blends recent drinking-water compliance, drought, and existing industrial demand. Higher pressure means new demand competes harder with current uses. It is not a judgment about whether one should be built.
Low water pressure
Arapahoe County has no health violations in the last 5 years, extreme drought, low existing industrial water demand.
- Mapped facilities
- 15
- EPA + OpenStreetMap layers
- Estimated power load
- 102 MW
- IM3 Atlas capacity estimate
- Permitted discharge
- Not reported
- Clean Water Act permit fields
- DCWSI national rank
- #42
- of 318 scored counties
The operators
How many data centers are in Arapahoe County?
15 facilities are mapped to Arapahoe County, Colorado across the EPA and OpenStreetMap layers, run by operators including AWS. Counts reflect mapped footprint, not an operator's total fleet.
- EPA ECHO
AMAZON DATA SERVICES - DEN-22
AWS · AURORA, CO
- EPA ECHO
EQUINIX LLC - EQUINIX LLC DE1
Equinix · CENTENNIAL, CO
- OpenStreetMap
Flexential - Denver - Aurora
Flexential · Aurora, CO
- OpenStreetMap
Flexential - Denver - Centennial Data Center
Flexential · Centennial, CO
- EPA ECHO
JPMORGAN CHASE - PROJECT SYCAMORE AURORA
AURORA, CO
- EPA ECHO
NISSAN N.AMERICA - NISSAN DATA CENTER
ENGLEWOOD, CO
- OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap data center 292506449
Centennial, CO
- OpenStreetMap
OpenStreetMap data center 916046040
Aurora, CO
- OpenStreetMap
QTS
Quality Technology Services · 08
- EPA ECHO
QTS AURORA LLC - QTS DEN1
QTS · AURORA, CO
- OpenStreetMap
Time Warner Datacenter
Centennial, CO
- OpenStreetMap
Time Warner Datacenter
Centennial, CO
- OpenStreetMap
Verizon
Verizon · 08
- OpenStreetMap
Xfinity/Comcast Data Center
Centennial, CO
- OpenStreetMap
zColo by Zayo
Centennial, CO
Supply versus demand
How much water do Arapahoe County data centers use?
Exact facility water draw is rarely public. As a screening proxy we compare the Clean Water Act permitted discharge mapped to these facilities against the county's entire industrial water baseline from the USGS 2020 series.
No Clean Water Act permitted discharge is reported for the mapped facilities in Arapahoe County. The figures below show the county's industrial water baseline for context.
- Mapped facility discharge
- Not reported
- County industrial baseline
- 1.37 Mgal/day
Model a build
Can Arapahoe County support more data centers?
On the water-pressure scale, Arapahoe County sits at 21, below the national median, so new large-load demand has more slack here than in most counties. Size a hypothetical build to see the daily draw against the county industrial baseline.
Data Center Water Budget Calculator
Estimate daily water use for a hypothetical facility in Arapahoe County.
Your facility would use 58.2% of this county's industrial water baseline. Verify water rights and long-term drought projections before committing.
Based on USGS 2020 water-use data and EPA-standard cooling intensity constants. Not a substitute for site-specific water rights analysis.
In context
How does Arapahoe County compare nationally?
- DCWSI build-out rank
- #42
- of 318 counties with a stress score
- Water pressure vs median
- +2
- national median is 19 of 100
- Share of mapped load
- 0.1%
- of 166.02 GW mapped nationally
Arapahoe County is one of 330 US counties with mapped data centers. See the full ranking and the interactive map in the national atlas.
Facility data combines EPA ECHO, EPA Clean Water Act permits, OpenStreetMap, and the IM3 Open Source Data Center Atlas (DOE/PNNL), geocoded to county FIPS. Capacity and water baselines come from IM3 and USGS 2020 water-use data. These are county-level screening figures, not a facility-level water-use audit. Read the full methodology.