COVINGTON, Ga. — The City of Covington approved a $100 million agreement with Amazon to construct a water treatment and cooling facility to support its data center on Alcovy Road.
According to Amazon, the facility is expected to bring high-skilled jobs and long-term economic impacts to the Covington and larger Newton County community.
The company thanked community leaders for their support in moving the project forward, adding that it was part of a recent $11 billion investment in Georgia.
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“This new project is expected to generate significant new tax revenues to support local priorities such as schools, public safety, and infrastructure, creating meaningful benefits for the community. We are also proud of our water innovations as part of this project, which limits water usage to only 6% of the year, with the remaining 94% relying on only outside air for cooling,” Amazon spokeswoman Simone Griffin told Channel 2 Action News. “In addition, we are funding and building a first-of-its-kind reclaimed water system that will help preserve over 45 million gallons of freshwater annually once operational.”
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During discussion by members of the Covington City Council, city leaders said the method for the first-of-its-kind water system would make it so the data center does not impact the potable water system at all.
That means it is not expected to have an effect on the city or county’s drinkable water system, or residential use of it.
Members of the city council approved the utility service agreement on Monday.
In additional comments from Amazon on the project, the company said the program will treat domestic sewage and use it for the data center’s cooling needs.
“Once the system is operational, 100% of the data center’s cooling water will come from reclaimed water,” Amazon said.
The facility is expected to preserve 45 million gallons of freshwater annually by 2030.
This is also said to be part of Amazon’s goal of being “water positive by 2030, returning more water to communities than it uses in its direct operations.”
Amazon said its web services division, AWS, was 54% to that goal as of 2024.
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