The Aquifer Says No: DEQ's SJ 25 Groundwater Study and the Data Center Question East of I-95
In July 2026 the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality published its study of the groundwater supply east of Interstate 95, ordered by the 2024 General Assembly under Senate Joint Resolution No.
In July 2026 the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality published its study of the groundwater supply east of Interstate 95, ordered by the 2024 General Assembly under Senate Joint Resolution No. 25 and released six months past its statutory deadline. This companion analysis in the Virginia data center series reads the 144-page report for county supervisors, planning staff, utility boards, and residents weighing data center proposals east of the fall line. The study's central result is a nine-site technical evaluation that simulated a hyperscale-scale groundwater withdrawal (3 million gallons per day, evaporative cooling) across the Virginia Coastal Plain aquifer system. All nine locations failed the permitting criteria. The best case anywhere was 360,000 gallons per day at Surprise Hill in Northumberland County, far from any development corridor; near the I-95 corridor the maximum passing amounts fall to 60,000 gallons per day and below, and the test locations in Henrico and Sussex counties failed at any volume the analysis measured. DEQ's conclusion is quotable and general: a data center on evaporative cooling, or any comparable water user, is unlikely to find a reliable, sufficient groundwater supply anywhere in the coastal plain. The analysis covers the study's release history (completed for the 2026 session, published in July 2026 after a public letter to the Governor), the aquifer system's condition and projected five-to-ten-year decline, the mechanics and limits of the nine-site test, county-by-county implications for the series jurisdictions, all twelve of DEQ's legislative recommendations, including the proposed comprehensive-plan mandate that would write groundwater availability into local land-use law, and a watchlist for the 2027 session. Prepared entirely from public sources. v1.1, July 27: appendix availability corrected... No findings changed
v1.2, August 6: the Franklin mill's 2010 withdrawal reduction restated — an 89 percent cut rather than a closure, with operations resumed in 2012 and post-2013 withdrawal averaging 42 percent of the pre-2010 rate, rising to 47 percent by 2024; DEQ's 40 percent figure reattributed to lawful unpermitted withdrawals as a class, with private domestic wells stated separately at 33.3 of the 96.3 million gallons per day withdrawn in the Eastern Virginia Groundwater Management Area; the advisory-board disclosure corrected, Version 1.1 and earlier having stated that the relationship postdated the underlying research; the companion volume Two Systems, One Drought (10.5281/zenodo.21816008) added to the series list. No findings changed.