AWS faces lawsuit over Virginia water claims

A former AWS scientist is challenging its public claims

Amazon Web Services is facing a lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Arlington County that alleges the company made false and misleading statements about the water use and sustainability of its Northern Virginia datacenters.

The complaint, case number CL26002535-00, was filed last week and reviewed by The Register. It argues that AWS has never publicly disclosed its actual water consumption in the region, even as it portrayed those operations as environmentally responsible.

The named plaintiff is Dr Nathan Wangusi, a water resources scientist who worked as AWS’s water sustainability program manager for almost three years until September 2024.

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What the complaint alleges

According to the lawsuit, Dr Wangusi obtained billing and water consumption records for AWS facilities in Northern Virginia through Freedom of Information Act requests sent to regional water utilities, covering 2023 through 2026.

The complaint says those records “materially differ” from the water-use figures AWS disclosed publicly.

One key target is an AWS blog post published last month, in which the company said that in Northern Virginia it had “dropped water use by 42 percent year-over-year, even as demand for computing continued to grow.” The lawsuit argues AWS did not disclose the comparison period, reporting boundary, or methodology behind that number.

The filing states:

“FOIA billing records from Prince William Water Authority (the only Northern Virginia utility with complete 12-month annual data for all three calendar years) show year-over-year decreases of 0.8% and 32.1%. No calendar-year or rolling 12-month window in the FOIA record produces a 42% reduction.”

The complaint also says AWS did not clarify whether its published water withdrawal figures cover only its own datacenters or also include colocation facilities in the region operated by Equinix, QTS, Digital Realty, and Iron Mountain, where AWS also has infrastructure.

Dispute over “water positive” and cooling claims

The lawsuit also takes aim at AWS’s statement that it is “75 percent of the way to water positive.” In Northern Virginia, where AWS made that commitment, the complaint claims FOIA data and Amazon’s own portfolio show returns covering only 22 to 25 percent of documented consumption.

According to the plaintiff, the 75 percent figure is instead a global metric that includes 17 projects still under construction.

Another disputed claim is AWS’s assertion that its Northern Virginia datacenters operate “ninety-seven percent of the year by pulling outside air and not using any water.” The lawsuit says utility records show AWS facilities withdrawing water year round, from January 2023 to December 2026, including winter months.

Virginia Connects named as co-defendant

Virginia Connects, a datacenter lobbying group, is also named in the suit. The complaint alleges the organization ran a coordinated video advertising campaign on the same date AWS published its 42 percent reduction claim, promoting similar messages the lawsuit describes as false.

Dr Wangusi further alleges that Virginia Connects is controlled by the same people who govern the Data Center Coalition, of which AWS is an Executive Member, and says that coordination amounts to conspiracy to commit deceptive trade practices under Virginia law.

Why the case went to court

The lawsuit says Dr Wangusi turned to the courts after finding that no state agencies were willing to act on what he saw as discrepancies between AWS’s public claims and recorded consumption.

According to the filing, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality said state law does not require datacenters to report water withdrawals to the agency and that it lacks authority to independently verify usage. A complaint to the Office of the Attorney General of Virginia was referred back to DEQ, the lawsuit says.

The filing adds that the FOIA Advisory Council told him that factual disputes over public disclosures are matters for the courts, and says he had therefore exhausted all available administrative remedies.

What the plaintiff wants

Dr Wangusi is seeking a jury trial. He wants the court to declare AWS’s published water-use and sustainability statements materially false or misleading and to require AWS to submit to the Virginia State Water Control Board and DEQ a complete accounting of its Northern Virginia water withdrawals.

If the court rules against AWS, the company would also have to publish corrective disclosures within 30 days of judgment, including its actual water consumption figures, methodologies, and supporting data.

Industry scrutiny is growing

Ben Caddy, Omdia senior analyst for Sustainable Ecosystems, told The Register:

“Hyperscalers, including AWS and its competitors, continue to face public scrutiny over the integrity of their claims around environmental impact and resource usage for datacenters,”

He added:

“Without stricter obligations for hyperscalers to be transparent about their resource use at a facility-specific level, it’s likely that these companies will continue to face more legal and reputational challenges about the local and global environmental impacts of their facilities,”

Amazon declined to comment on the lawsuit when asked by The Register, aside from saying its water replenishment and withdrawal data for 2025 were assured by a third-party provider.