Anger is spreading in Uruguay's Montevideo after it was revealed that Google is planning to build a data center that will eventually use millions of liters of water per day in a country already suffering from its worst drought in 74 years.

A state of emergency has already been declared in Montevideo leading authorities to add salty water to the public drinking water system, which has sparked even more outrage. According to critics, the government is prioritizing transnationals and agribusinesses at the expense of its own people.

Daniel Peña, researcher at the University of the Republic in Montevideo, stated, “Only a tiny proportion of water in Uruguay is used for human consumption. The majority is used for big agro-industries, such as soya, rice and wood pulping. Now we have Google planning to use enormous quantities of water.”

29 hectares (72 acres) of land was bought by Google to begin construction of the data center in the Canelones department, in southern Uruguay. The plan would need 7.6m liters (2m gallons) of water daily to cool its servers - that is the domestic daily use of 55,000 people, according to data by the Ministry of Environment received by Peña through legal action. 

Uruguay’s industry ministry claims this data is outdated because the company is revising its plans and the data center will be “smaller”.

In a statement of its plan, Google claims that the center would serve users globally to process requests for services like YouTube, Gmail, and Google Search.

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“The Uruguay data center project is still in the exploratory phase, and Google’s technical team is actively working with the support of national and local authorities. We expect preliminary numbers (like projected water consumption) to undergo adjustments. At Google, sustainability is at the core of everything we do, and the way we design and manage our data centers is no exception,” it said.

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'Not drought, but a pillage'

Record high temperatures and low rainfall left Uruguay’s main reservoir dry, so to make up the supply, authorities are taking water from the Rio de la Plata estuary, where seawater mixes with freshwater, which gives tap water a salty taste. 

The allowed levels of sodium chloride in tap water have been doubled by the government, which has advised pregnant women and seriously-ill people not to drink it. 

Uruguayan President Luis Lacalle Pou announced emergency measures including lifting taxes on bottled water and distributing two liters of free water daily to 21,000 vulnerable families. He also vowed to build a new reservoir in a month.

Carmen Sosa of the trade union-backed Commission to Defend Water and Life said, "Tap water is virtually undrinkable. But there are approximately 500,000 people who can’t afford to buy bottled water." The Commission to Defend Water and Life's slogan “This is not drought, it’s pillage” is scrawled on walls in Montevideo.

Sosa added, “More than 80% of water goes to industry, like soya and wood pulping. Yes, we have had a shortage of rain, but the drought has simply shown the problems with our economic model. We can’t concentrate resources in a few hands."

“Water for human consumption has to come before profit.”

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The world's biggest pulping plant started operations in Uruguay last month. Managed by the Finnish company UPM, the plant which creates raw material for paper is predicted to use 129.6m liters (34m gallons) of water daily and release the waste into Rio Negro. It claims that the waste is treated before release, and the water quality is constantly monitored in the river. 

A UPM spokesperson relayed to The Guardian, “Uruguay is facing the worst drought in a century. Within this framework, UPM’s operations in Uruguay have no connection with the drought that is occurring."

The spokesperson added, "The drinking water consumed in Montevideo comes from the Santa Lucía River. None of the pulp mills installed in Uruguay are linked to this river. This challenging climatic situation cannot be associated in any way with the forestry sector.”