RICHMOND, VA — Senator Richard H. Stuart (R-King George), a member of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee and one of five Senators named to the conference committee that negotiated Virginia’s 2026-2028 biennial budget, announced today that he secured a first-in-the-nation safeguard to stop new data centers from draining the groundwater that millions of Virginians rely on for drinking water, farming and everyday life.
“The data center industry has been allowed to write its own rules in Virginia for far too long, and our communities are the ones paying the price,” Senator Stuart said. “These companies have moved into our state, promised the moon, and then turned around and asked to drain our water supply, strain our power grid, and benefit from a sales and use tax exemption while they do it.”
The provision, included in the final conference budget for House Bill 30, requires that beginning January 1, 2027, any new data center seeking an air permit from the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) within the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area must cool its operations using one of three water-conscious methods: air cooling systems, 100 percent recycled water and/or stormwater, or a closed-loop cooling system that does not draw down groundwater supplies. The budget further directs DEQ to study and produce a plan by October 15, 2026, for retrofitting existing data centers in the region to meet the same standard.
“This provision tells the industry plainly: you do not get to treat our groundwater as a free resource for your bottom line. I fought hard to get this into the final budget because someone has to stand up for the families, farmers and small communities who don’t have armies of lobbyists working on their behalf, and I will keep fighting to rein in this industry until every part of Virginia has the same protection,” concluded Stuart.
Why it matters
The Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area covers much of the Coastal Plain, including the rural, agriculture-dependent communities of the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula that Senator Stuart represents. The region draws its water from the Potomac Aquifer system, a finite, slow-to-recharge groundwater source that also serves as a primary source of drinking water for the area and is already showing signs of long-term decline and saltwater intrusion in parts of Hampton Roads. State regulators have spent years managing the aquifer’s limited capacity among competing users, public water systems, farms and industry. Large-scale industrial withdrawals for data center cooling threaten to accelerate that decline, putting drinking water supplies and agricultural irrigation at greater risk, particularly during droughts.
That risk is not theoretical. A recent analysis found that local governments in Louisa, Spotsylvania, Caroline and Stafford counties have already committed close to 20 million gallons of water a day to a single data center company, enough to supply roughly a quarter-million people, and that figure does not include other projects still pending approval. With Virginia hosting the largest concentration of data centers in the country and demand continuing to grow, advocates and local officials have warned that unchecked water use, especially during increasingly common drought conditions, could put long-term strain on the rivers, reservoirs and aquifers that communities depend on.
Senator Stuart’s provision gets ahead of that pressure in the part of the state least able to absorb it.
The budget also lays the groundwork for these protections to expand statewide. It directs DEQ to amend its water supply planning regulations by July 1, 2027, to establish criteria for designating additional “Cooling Water Scarcity Areas” anywhere in Virginia where water evaporation from data center cooling could harm water quality or supply for other uses. Beginning before July 1, 2032, any data center operating in a designated Cooling Water Scarcity Area will be required to certify to DEQ that it is using air cooling, closed-loop systems, or the most efficient cooling technology available, to the maximum extent practicable, to minimize water use.
“For too long, the explosive growth of the data center industry has put it on a collision course with the basic needs of the Virginia communities that host it,” Senator Stuart said. “Access to our groundwater isn’t a luxury, it’s the water our neighbors drink, the water our farmers depend on to grow their crops, and the water that keeps our rivers and the Chesapeake Bay healthy. I hope Governor Spanberger will join in supporting this important safeguard.”
The final conference budget for House Bill 30, Virginia’s 2026-2028 biennial budget, passed the Senate of Virginia and the House of Delegates today, Monday, June 22, 2026, and will now go to Governor Spanberger for her approval, amendments or veto.
Senator Stuart represents the 25th Senate District, which includes Caroline, Essex, King George, King William, Lancaster, Middlesex, Northumberland, Richmond and Westmoreland counties, as well as portions of King and Queen and Spotsylvania counties.
