Michigan Has a Sixth Great Lake and We’ve Been Ignoring It

We all know that Michigan has five Great Lakes we brag about, recite to one another, and play in. But there's a sixth Great Lake that we completely ignore. According to state scientists with the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy (EGLE), groundwater is ignored. Now officially treated as a single, massive system so large it rivals Lake Huron. Congrats, Michigan. You've been standing on a Great Lake this whole time.

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This underground giant supplies drinking water to more than half of the state, keeps rivers flowing during dry spells, and quietly supports wetlands in Inland lakes. For decades, we assumed it was endless. Science gently cleared its throat and said, Absolutely not. A point that hits home with a slew of data centers itching to move into Michigan.

How Data Centers Use Water

Data centers, like the ones used by internet giant Amazon, are giant buildings packed wall-to-wall with servers that store photos, stream videos, run apps, and pretty much keep the internet from collapsing into chaos. Data center machines run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and get incredibly hot, so they need constant cooling.

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Many data centers use water-based cooling systems, which means massive amounts of water are pulled in, used to cool the equipment, and then evaporated. Translation: that water is not coming back anytime soon.

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute claims some facilities can use hundreds of thousands to millions of gallons per day. That's not a typo. That's a small city's worth of water disappearing into the air, so your cloud storage doesn't overheat.

What Happens When Groundwater Is Overused

Michigan is attractive to data centers because we have water, and lots of it. But that water often comes from groundwater aquifers, the same system now being called the sixth Great Lake. Pump too much, and streams shrink; wetlands suffer, and inland lakes drop.  The scary part is that it happens slowly, so the damage shows up years later.

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EGLE is now using better modeling to predict impacts before permits are approved. Michigan didn't just rediscover its sixth Great Lake. It realized it needs to protect it, especially from buildings that never sleep and fuel social media opinions.