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Thermal pollution is pollution.
> The draft for a new permit that would allow data centers across the state to release untreated wastewater and stormwater directly into rivers and streams.

> The new permit would apply to water that circulates through all current or future data centers, regardless of location.

Stormwater is a non-issue and generally a waste of money racket unless you're talking about developing a many acre concrete jungle or some sort of facility that will generate pollution that it may pick up. Datacenters, warehouse, etc. don't really have that issue. "Treatment" in these cases would consist of the gutters simply running into a bioswale (i.e. a grassy ditch, god I hate how the industry intentionally makes the language incomprehensible to laymen). There'd be some number crunching regarding volume and stuff but nothing that any competent dirt work contractor couldn't shoot from the hip simply by looking at the building size. There's no real cost impact to over-sizing it once you've set down the path of engineered site plan which all these facilities probably will.

The wastewater I am concerned about though for the thermal reasons many have cited.

Water retention plantings like bioswales could help with the thermal impacts too if the wastewater can be treated there right?
The problem with pads and ditches and ponds and stuff is you'd still have to prove the out-flow from your is fine to enter the river so you're basically just adding the extra step of engineering your ditch and then proving it's not gonna erode or whatever.

I think the ideal solution would be to just run it over a concrete pad to cool it to ambient but the regulators are shit and if anyone anywhere has ever dumped clean warm water into a river your best solution is likely to be to copy them and pay your lawyers to cite all the reasons the other people found it fine. Anything you do is gonna get bike shed to hell and there's a lot less variables for them to do that with if it's just a dumb pipe.

The laws and rules are all a giant nightmare (and the enforcers are worse) that prevent common sense solutions, creativity and small scale development generally and force people to copycat cookie cutter stuff.