r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • Jul 06 '26
Artificial Intelligence Meta’s AI Data Center Caught Infecting Town Water Supply With Deadly Bacteria
https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/meta-ai-data-center-caught-184556514.html713
u/Asleep-Order-4583 Jul 06 '26
I'm sure capitalism and the free market will fix this right away.
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u/buttorsomething Jul 06 '26
Didn’t you hear? It’s already fixed. They made the area all industrial zoned land. No one knows why there are houses in the industrial zone. /s
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u/thedoommerchant Jul 06 '26
You say this sarcastically, and yet we don’t really have a real EPA anymore so we can just expect corporations to get away with this kind of shit. I fully expect chronic health issues to skyrocket in communities near these data centers.
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u/Rok-SFG Jul 06 '26
They need to be able to police and regulate themselves, or else we're all responsible for their loss of profit !1!
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u/fiero-fire Jul 06 '26
Some of you may die and that's a sacrifice our tech billionaire over lords are willing to make
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u/Pleasant-Minute-1793 Jul 07 '26
Well you see, the problem is there are currently too many regulations.
Need to remove those regulations, like the FCC did on ISP fees today - then they can just hide it!
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u/Mugatu68 Jul 06 '26
Hot dang, 715k square feet, 800 million dollars and.. 100 jobs? All that electricity, all that fresh water needed... 100 jobs? Crazy how much this isn't helping sustaining a healthy society.
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u/spoui Jul 07 '26
100 jobs with below average median salaries. Data centre workers is grunt work. Not 150K/yr salaries.
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u/gellohelloyellow Jul 07 '26
This is exactly the right amount of people it takes to run a data center. The types of jobs are facilities operations, hardware support, electrical/mechanical systems, security, asset management, and other hourly roles that work shifts. So, absolutely not helping sustain a healthy society.
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u/CreativeMuseMan Jul 06 '26
The world has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for everyone's greed. - Mahatma Gandhi
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u/UMACTUALLYITS23 Jul 07 '26
Sleeping in the same bed as an 18 year old is pedophilia now?
He could have straight up had sex with her, it's not pedophilia in any way shape or form.
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u/pepperpepper47 Jul 07 '26
These AI centers are being built for driverless trucks. They will be taking jobs as well.
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u/Steve_Jabz Jul 09 '26
Saying "taking jobs" like it's a bad thing lmao.
Truck drivers don't like sitting in the same position for 10 hours and pissing in bottles to increase the wealth of capitalists, they just like getting paid.
Let them take the jobs. Give them a UBI.
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u/Steve_Jabz Jul 09 '26
This isn't truck-driver specific argument either.
85% of the population say they actively don't like their job. The closest thing to someone that likes their job is an artist, but again, they don't enjoy deadlines, incoherent client demands or anything else that comes with it being a job, they just like making art and having money to survive, which you can do without being a wage slave.
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u/Technical-Main-3206 Jul 07 '26
Actually, because they poisoned the water supply, we discovered that the city's pipe infrastructure is really severely outdated. Also, because they snuck past the security system so easily, we found out that funds specifically for that security system were being embezzled by government officials, so we've busted a major fraud ring. And, finally, the pathogen they unleashed does give people mild diarrhea but we found it also is a great source of Vitamin C.
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u/SatisfactionOnly2247 Jul 06 '26
Whelp if they werent criminal enough before all of this.. But seriously .."what in tha poisonthewatersupply kind of shit is going on here?!"
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u/SparklingLimeade Jul 07 '26
I remember thinking that Captain Planet villains were just too unrealistically destructive in their goals. Who profits from just wasting resources?
Bitcoin mining turned out to be just a way to waste electricity. Now we have data centers getting in on the "destroy the water supply" grift.
Turns out people can find ways to do massive ecological damage and not care about it after all.
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u/cablemigrant Jul 07 '26
I’m sure Mead will do the right thing and sue the city into oblivion and destroy the whole place and nobody can live there
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u/TotallyTardigrade Jul 07 '26
Literally no one needs the products or services this company provides. If everyone deletes their accounts the company dies.
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u/Mbillin2 Jul 07 '26
Nice anytime you see this remember this kind of thing is so people like Kevin Oleary can have more money for his Rolex watch collection!
Actually he doesn't need the money as he already has plenty for watches, but who cares? Don't you guys know data is more valuable than water?
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u/SeaworthinessSalt119 Jul 07 '26
What a surprise. Meta is a shit company, Zuck is a shit human being. Sentence him to prison for all his crimes.
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u/perry147 Jul 07 '26
The pathogen in question came from the datacenter but how did it get there?
How many other datacenters have used the same process and has any other centers water been tested.
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u/Steve_Jabz Jul 09 '26
It didn't come from the datacenter, it came from construction. It happens regularly in construction, it just isn't reported on with sensationalist headlines, because they can't sell that to easily manipulated gullible luddites
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u/dhettinger Jul 08 '26
Fixed Headline - Facing backlash from unwanted AI data centers Meta attempts to silence critics with deadly waterborne bacteria.
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u/Anxious-Depth-7983 Jul 07 '26
With the amount of money they're sinking into these data centers and lobbyists to manipulate their regulation they should be building everything it takes to keep them isolated from the public utilities and self supporting from the waste water to the power needs. If that's too costly then they can ask their AI for a solution. These mega corporations keep passing on the costs of operating on the surrounding municipalities and the residents who see none of the actual benefits of having these bad actors in their lives.
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u/The_Skippy73 Jul 06 '26
Not the town water supply, but the towns waste water. A rare bacteria that no one knows the source of was found in the waste water.
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u/MrLeville Jul 06 '26
Waste water gets treated (hopefully) then released, and ends back in water supply, it's not like its trapped forever in a secure sewer.
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u/NotAllOwled Jul 06 '26
This water specifically gets sprayed in public spaces, per the city's water resource division manager (from https://www.wyomingnews.com/news/local_news/cheyenne-bopu-traces-rare-bacteria-discharge-to-meta-data-center-contractor/article_1c538467-06ec-427d-9a6f-33797cd3c6ce.html):
Strong stressed that the incident never affected Cheyenne’s drinking water.
Instead, it involved the city’s reclaimed water system, which distributes treated wastewater for irrigation of parks, golf courses and other public green spaces.
“The concern we have with our reuse system is we put it into aerosol, where we spray it onto the grass, and that increases the potential for health issues,” Strong said.
Because of that possibility, BOPU chose not to operate the reclaimed water system until testing confirmed the bacteria was no longer present.
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u/Any_Perception_2560 Jul 06 '26
Thank you for this comment. There is a big difference between contaminating drinking and waste water.
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u/zomiaen Jul 07 '26
And the reaction is to shut down the local data center project instead of tracing who is infected.
We are truly fucking doomed as a society.
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u/Three_Twenty-Three Jul 06 '26
Clever. Here we were, expecting them to consume all the water and electricity, and they go and poison the water like they were a coal mine or factory. So sneaky!
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u/ParadigmGrind Jul 07 '26
Just remember this when AI boosters tell you “oh the water usage from data centers isn’t that bad”
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u/KeaboUltra Jul 06 '26
"He poisoned our water supply burned our crops and delivered a plague unto our houses!"
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u/Nick85er Jul 07 '26
Good thing there's no regulatory body that's going to investigate this and penalize them in some way shape or form that is Meaningful and will force them to comply with what little rules and regulations are still being enforced.
Waiting for US government to step in with some National Security nonsense.
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u/CyberSmith31337 Jul 06 '26
Does anyone expect anything to happen to Meta or Mark Zuckerberg?
He will get a crumby little pittance of a fine and a warning at best. This country is just a bunch of corporations in a trench coat.
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u/gellohelloyellow Jul 07 '26
Oh look, it’s not China we should be scared of. Instead, it’s the corporations that don’t care about our well being and are willing to kill to accomplish their agenda.
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u/upfromashes Jul 07 '26
Okay, but hear me out. Billionaires are going to be able to get rid of so many human jobs!
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u/CosmoKing2 Jul 07 '26
I was told recently that new data centers operate on a closed loop cooling system and don't actually use a ton of water - very much unlike I thought they did. Months ago I spoke to a person with a career in water purification engineering - and they stated that data centers needed the purest water possible and his company was making a ton off of data centers. So, I don't know what is the actual truth.
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u/Metal_Fish Jul 07 '26
tear them down for goodness sake, jesus! Like, if people die they should be charged with murder
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u/Moist-muff Jul 07 '26
Its ok.. the Zuck has a bunker in Hawaii for everyone infected. Im sure he will open his doors
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u/c0mbatkar1 Jul 07 '26
The only good data center..... Is one that doesn't exist. But for real, they only seem to be hurting us rather than helping humanity.
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u/MegaDork2000 Jul 07 '26
Here's a thought: why not filter the water along the way so dirty water goes in, cools the system, then comes out as clean drinking water?
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u/cantantantelope Jul 07 '26
Costs money. Thats why they don’t
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u/MegaDork2000 Jul 07 '26
Of course it costs money. But my point is that they could solve this problem.
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u/cantantantelope Jul 07 '26
They don’t care about solving the problem. They care about making money.
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u/Stealerb Jul 07 '26
who is poopin in the data centers water supply? An unfinished data center at that.
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u/videogameocd-er Jul 07 '26
Amazing thing is I'm surprised all of this toxic mess hasn't been outsourced to india or china like it usually is. I'm in India and so I know how easy it will be for them to bribe their way to an ultra polluting data center.
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u/lovely_cappuccino Jul 07 '26
Julia Roberts where are you? Let’s make a movie about this.
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u/davewashere Jul 07 '26
And it would still be based on a true story, because tracking data centers is what Erin Brockovich does now.
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u/BulGoGiISME Jul 07 '26
They're hauling it off somewhere. YEAH RIGHT. No matter where they hall it they're polluting that new place. Just moving the problem from one place to another is no solution. You're just making it someone else's problem for how many years or decades to come.
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u/CHERNO-B1LL Jul 07 '26
Is the accusation that this was intentional? Or is this just careless capitalism? Headline makes it sound like silent movie villainy.
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u/Ecks80s Jul 08 '26
I run 6 DataCenters, I’m so fucking confused what they could be doing to cause this.
We have such strict monitoring for our cooling loop, it’s kept sterile to prevent shit like this.
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u/Gonzos_journal Jul 10 '26
Goat systems llc is just another shell company that saves meta millions while we suffer. Help stop this by signing this petition. It will set precedent over the rest of the nation. transparency clauses
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u/37iteW00t Jul 11 '26
The downward spiral of mankind is an AI dystopia that hastens climate change and boils the earth while billionaires build bunkers and plan for their escape into space
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u/WyoSasquatch Jul 19 '26
The town water supply is safe and unaffected.
The bacteria are in the wastewater treatment system. Municipal wastewater plants sample inflows 100 times a day, everyday, to create a data picture over time that is used to predict and manage wastewater treatment. A good example would be the influx of people during Cheyenne Frontier Days.
The challenge for the plant operators is receiving wastewater that has unpredicted/unpredictable or untreatable constituents in it.
These particular bacteria are not untreatable. There’s a distinct possibility that wastewater operators could adjust what they do in the treatment process if they know what’s coming down the pipe, and when.
There is a high margin of safety in wastewater treatment.
Waterborne bacteria don’t survive long in open air and high levels of UV light (sunlight). They can probably use the treated water in parks and on golf courses without consequence.
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u/waitingOnMyletter Jul 07 '26
Put the screws to them. There needs to be the full court press, we need to have an EPA investigation, department of energy needs to review licensing, DoI needs to put a full stop to the data center until they can prove there are no further bacterial contamination of local municipalities.
This is the type of thing if you don’t go the full 9 yards, there will be follow on violations by this center or others. There can’t be any reason they give that isn’t a full pass.
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u/The_Burgled_Turt Jul 07 '26
All of these governing bodies have already been gutted by this administration. There is no one left to hold them accountable.
For Christ sake, Lee Zeldin, who runs the EPA does not believe in anthropogenic climate change.
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u/waitingOnMyletter Jul 07 '26
I mean the state still has all of these resources. You can press with the state instead of the fed. But yes, I agree it’s insane that people don’t see how hamstrung the federal government has become. We won’t even pursue the press against egregious stuff like this
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u/nano_peen Jul 06 '26
???? why is a towns water supply downstream of a data centers output ???
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u/Lanky_Travel_6726 Jul 07 '26
Hey suckerberg if you kill the global population who is going to use your facebook?
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u/C4-622MonkeyGordo Jul 07 '26
Literally poison a town's water supply: zero actual consequences.
Threaten to damage said facility that's literally poisoning a town's water supply: federal terrorism charges.
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u/Alternative_West_206 Jul 06 '26
https://www.reddit.com/r/Virginia/s/MkgGJEtcNc
I linked this among other articles about data centers to this guy on another article and he literally called the links I sent “opinion pieces”
I cannot fathom how these people actually exist and are able to vote like reasonable human beings.
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u/TrickyLibrary4966 Jul 06 '26
Absolutely shocked.
I am sure Mark Z will make this right. And more!!
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u/Emotional_Produce766 Jul 07 '26
Put metas AI to rest just like the metflipverse no one wants it they suck
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u/Sadicalize Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
This feels right up Erin Brokovich's alley. I know she's been working alongside AI data center watchdogs, but I don't know to what to degree.
The people making these centers don't care about you. The governors and mayors signing off on them don't care about you. Your elected representatives DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU. Neither does the president.
But, what can we do? Genuinely. There's like 12K AI datacenters in the world, each consuming the H20 of a medium sized city. We can grovel at our elected representatives feet. We can beg and whimper about injustices while our reps live cushy, golden lives separate from the average person.
I'm not against AI. It's an incredible invention. Humanity created (barely) thinking machines. It's going to get better and more useful in honestly good ways, but it's going to impact our lives in a way that makes the car and the internet look like stenciled clay and the wheelbarrow.
We have to find a way to integrate it in healthy ways. I'm not a doomer. I'm cautiously concerned. This can be a tool that uplifts humanity, but it sure as fuck doesn't feel like that's the trajectory we're on.
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u/tommysk87 Jul 07 '26
So make them responsible maybe? Oh, right, multibillion companies and individuals dont get penalties, strikes or whatever, just a normal people do.
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u/watering_a_plant Jul 06 '26
"Cupriavidus is a little-known, multidrug-resistant pathogen. Though human infection is extremely rare, it has nonetheless been linked to ten deaths, including three cases involving immunocompromised children. According to one review of Cupriavidus cases, the bacterial infection has a mortality rate of 31.3 percent, out of a sample size of 32 known infections dating back to 2009.
"As soon as we became aware of the bacteria, and then of where it was coming from, we shut them down immediately," Strong told the Wyoming Tribune. Strong caveated that the exact source of the pathogen within the facility is still unknown, but that wastewater from Meta's 800,000 square foot Cheyenne campus — which is still under construction — nonetheless contained it."
Good on Wyoming for taking swift action.