AOC presses EPA over Morgan County drinking water concerns as Meta defends Georgia data center operations
U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez used a congressional hearing this month to spotlight concerns from Morgan County residents who say their drinking water may have been impacted by nearby data center development in rural Georgia.
Ocasio-Cortez held up jars of discolored water during the hearing and said some families have resorted to shipping water to their homes for cooking and bathing.
"This is not just inconvenience," the congresswoman argued during the hearing. "This is a basic public health issue."
The exchange, which took place before the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, centered on complaints tied to the Stanton Springs industrial area east of Atlanta, where Meta operates a large data center campus.
Ocasio-Cortez questioned EPA Assistant Administrator for Water Jessica Kramer about what she described as mounting concerns from residents who reported low water pressure and discolored or "murky" water near the development site.
Following the hearing, the Environmental Protection Agency said Assistant Administrator Kramer directed EPA Region 4 officials to contact Georgia environmental regulators and local authorities in Morgan County to gather additional information about the complaints.
However, the agency emphasized that those efforts should not be interpreted as a formal federal investigation.
"We want to be precise on one point at the outset: looking into a matter and gathering facts is not the same as opening a formal investigation," the EPA said in a statement provided to CBS News Atlanta.
According to the EPA, officials contacted the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, the Morgan County Public Health Department and the University of Georgia Cooperative Extension office following the May 20 hearing.
The Morgan County Public Health Department told EPA it had received questions from residents earlier this year regarding low water pressure and visibly dirty water. But officials also said they had not received water samples specifically tied to those complaints.
The University of Georgia Cooperative Extension office, which handles broader private well testing in Georgia, also told EPA it had not seen an increase in testing requests related to the issue.
EPA officials said they have requested additional documentation, complaints and testing results from Ocasio-Cortez's office.
The agency also noted that private wells are not regulated under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and that Georgia does not regulate private well water quality at the state level. EPA officials said the federal government's role is largely limited to technical assistance and public guidance for private well owners.
Meta denies the claims
In response to the concerns raised during the hearing, Meta defended its operations and said the company previously commissioned an independent groundwater study after complaints surfaced near Stanton Springs.
"We work closely with water and wastewater utility companies to ensure there are no negative impacts from our data centers based on our water use," a Meta spokesperson said in a statement to CBS News. "When concerns were raised in Stanton Springs, we commissioned an independent groundwater study, which found that our data center operations and construction had no impact on the resident. All construction and operations water was fully sourced from the local water utility, not groundwater sources."
According to background information provided by Meta, the company retained a consulting and engineering firm in May 2025 to evaluate whether development activities at the Stanton Springs campus could have affected groundwater conditions near a homeowner in Mansfield, Georgia.
Meta said the study concluded the company's construction and operations were unlikely to have impacted the nearby well due to the area's watershed structure, topography and groundwater flow patterns.
The company said the homeowner's reported issues — including low water pressure and sediment concerns — began in 2018 after land clearing started at the site. Meta argued the affected property is located in a separate watershed roughly 1.3 miles from portions of the campus and more than a mile away from isolated blasting operations conducted during construction.
Meta also said all construction and operational water for the campus is sourced through the Newton County Water and Sewerage Authority rather than groundwater wells.
The hearing arrives as Georgia continues to experience rapid growth in data center development, especially across metro Atlanta and surrounding counties. The expansion has increasingly raised questions about water usage, electrical demand and environmental oversight as artificial intelligence and cloud computing infrastructure continue to expand nationwide.
Morgan County, which overwhelmingly supported President Donald Trump in the 2024 election, has emerged as an unexpected flashpoint in the broader national debate over Big Tech infrastructure and rural environmental protections.
CBS News Atlanta has also reached out to the Morgan County Board of Commissioners for additional comment regarding the concerns raised during the hearing and whether any additional state or local reviews are underway.
Ocasio-Cortez suggested during the hearing that Congress may ultimately need to revisit whether federal groundwater oversight should evolve alongside the country's growing industrial and data center footprint.