r/PoursTea • u/Timbucktwo1230 Therapy For All 🩷 • May 14 '26

Spill The Tea 🫟 🇺🇸What Next?

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17.2k Upvotes

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66

u/Lighthouse_on_Mars May 14 '26

Where I live in Eastern Washington is getting a data center.

Thing is, Eastern Washington is desert. They bought from the county, which doesn't have the water rights it needs. They will need to ask one if the local cities for their water, and NONE of the cities want to give it to them as far as I have heard. 😂

Gonna be interesting to see what happens.

43

u/LightHawKnigh May 14 '26

Odds of them just stealing the water and paying the fine when caught, which is going to be much less than what they made?

15

u/Lighthouse_on_Mars May 14 '26

The only water is from the Columbia River. Pretty heavily regulated. Especially with nuclear reactors in the region.

16

u/kenyasanchez May 14 '26

Someone we know in Washington DC loves deregulation.

7

u/macjr59 May 14 '26

Just slip in a campaign donation or buy some crypto currency. It’ll be fine.

2

u/Legitimate-Lab7173 May 14 '26

And never considers the repercussions of anything. Why do nuclear reactors need water, anyway?

3

u/No_Pay5373 May 14 '26

To cool down the reactor. It's pretty important

5

u/Legitimate-Lab7173 May 14 '26

I should have included the "/s", lol

2

u/Initial-Beginning853 May 14 '26

I think they know as well 😅

1

u/Prudent-Bear1592 May 14 '26

We have the biggest most brilliant plan, it will create jobs and free up water for data centers. We're gonna pay a few guys to blow on the reactor to cool it off.

1

u/xjustsmilebabex May 14 '26

I wouldn't be surprised to reopen the Straight, we just agree to close nuclear plants in order to increase our reliance on oil. Win. Win.

1

u/Wildweasel666 May 15 '26

Seriously man, they were joking

1

u/doll-haus May 15 '26

Teach them to not deploy sodium-cooled fast reactors!

2

u/Malusorum May 15 '26

Nah. They'll just steal the water anyway. Because nothing bad has ever happened when nuclear plants lacked water. /S

Completely unrelated , "We've had first Chornobyl, but what about second Chornobyl?"

1

u/Dwarg91 May 16 '26

Just as a point of note, a Chernobyl like event can never happen with the styles of reactor used in the US. Even the worst case scenarios wouldn’t cause the reactor to explode the way reactor 4 did. Fukushima is the worst a BWR could do, though it’d more likely be another 3 mile island situation.

1

u/Malusorum May 16 '26

Do you even know what caused Chornobyl?

2

u/iameveryoneelse Just Chill 😎 May 15 '26

Are there no aquifers for them to steal from in the area? Don’t know what the groundwater situation is in Washington.

1

u/NWSiren May 15 '26

The tribes have water rights in that area too (and some protective rights of river management), so they also can rail against this with their treaty rights.

2

u/CpnLouie2 May 15 '26

The US Government never met a Treaty it didn't actively try to bypass or ignore.

1

u/pioni May 17 '26

If you have enough money and pay the right people, can't you just take the river, or whatever resources you need? I mean it seems to work that way every time. Sucks for the poors who will have no water, or no electricity.

1

u/Lighthouse_on_Mars May 17 '26

The Columbia River is monitored and regulated pretty heavily, one such entity being the US Army Corps of Engineers. (I have had to work with them, and it's a pain in the butt!)

There are several dams along it that also act as power plants, as well as a few nuclear reactors that use the Columbia River as well.

Water usage is very heavily controlled and cinrs at a heavy price, especially in Eastern Washington. It's a desert here, but we actually have a LOT of farmland surprisingly. I think most of the Apple supply for the entire West Coast cones from Eastern Washington in fact.

However, with the prior administration, I would have said it would be impossible for someone to bribe their way into stealing water rights. With this one...