September 2nd, 2026
Defend Our Health submitted the following comments to the Maine Data Center Advisory Council this week, urging them to take steps to protect Maine communities from the significant environmental risks posed by the insufficiently-regulated construction and expansion of AI Data Centers.
Co-Chairs Commissioner Loyzim and Acting Commissioner Cunningham and distinguished members of the Data Center Advisory Council, please accept these comments from Defend Our Health regarding the Council’s work to address large-scale data centers in Maine.
Defend Our Health is a Maine-based environmental health non-profit and our mission is to make sure that everyone has equal access to safe food and drinking water, healthy homes and products that are toxic-free and climate friendly. We are thankful of the work that the Council is doing to put in place safeguards and regulations that will protect people, communities, and the environment from the impacts of possible large-scale data center development in the state.
We strongly believe that the state needs to expand and strengthen environmental regulations to address issues like chemical discharge and pollution, including but not limited to PFAS, to protect public health and the environment of all Mainers.
One of our main concerns relates to water use. Hyperscale data centers require massive cooling systems, each of which is interconnected with water consumption, energy demands, and environmental impacts. In water-cooled systems, only fresh drinking water can be used by data centers due to concerns of corrosion and bacterial growth. In addition, the water can’t be recycled[1] – in fact, 80% of it evaporates while the remaining is discharged to municipal wastewater facilities, which struggle to handle the high volume of wastewater produced.
Closed-loop systems, which rely on a concentrated cocktail of chemicals to prevent corrosion, bring nitrite, glycol, and heavy metals at thousands of times the limits set for surface waters[2] when it must be periodically drained to prevent buildup. Closed-loop systems also have higher energy consumption[3] due to the need to maintain circulation pumps and the frequent installation of secondary cooling systems for workers.
Data centers also contaminate fresh water sources by leaking into local water wells[4] and through energy-seeking projects such as large-scale buildouts of gas pipelines and fracking[5].
The use of PFAS chemicals in large-scale data centers is of particular concern to us. Data centers host tens of thousands of servers that run 24/7 in order to keep virtual networks, cloud storage, and computing in operation. Such servers require semiconductors, cooling systems, and fire suppressants—all sources of PFAS forever chemicals.[6] Addressing these sources of contamination in the state include addressing the semiconductor exemption from the 2024 PFAS in products amendment and adopting strong discharge standards to prevent contamination of our soil, waterways, and drinking water for any PFAS use.
The Federal Government is fast-tracking the approval of PFAS chemicals for use in datacenters[7] without knowing the level at which the chemicals are “acutely lethal” or cause other serious health damage. The EPA also conceded that the chemicals may present an “unreasonable risk” to workers and the public, while still approving them.
We cannot rely on the Federal Government to implement regulations that protect people and the environment from PFAS and other contaminants used by large-scale data centers. We have already seen attacks and deregulation to hallmark legislation like the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, and the Toxic Substances Control Act.
We urge the Council to examine the protections that are currently in place under federal law and duplicate the ones that will protect our environment and communities from pollution and toxic chemicals.
[1] https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-and-water-consumption
[2] https://ketos.co/closed-loop-cooling-water-saver-or-chemical-time-bomb
[3] https://www.lzbftower.com/info/disadvantages-of-closed-loop-cooling-systems-103283003.html
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/14/technology/meta-data-center-water.html
[5] https://www.selc.org/topic/methane-gas-threatens-southern-people-and-places/
[6] https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/data-centers-are-contributing-to-pfas-forever-chemical-pollution
[7] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/aug/26/trump-epa-datacenter-forever-chemicals
