Google Pryor (North) data center, Pryor, Oklahoma

Google's data center in Pryor, Mayes County, Oklahoma, has run since 2011 inside the state-owned MidAmerica Industrial Park and is the largest data center in the state. Google announced in August 2025 that it would expand the Pryor campus as part of a $9 billion, two-year investment in Oklahoma that also funds a new campus in Stillwater. The campus draws its water from the Neosho River under a contract through the industrial park.

The campus uses evaporative cooling, which loses much of its water to the air. Utility records obtained by The Frontier show it used more than 1.1 billion gallons of water from July 2024 to June 2025, enough to fill about 1,666 Olympic-size pools, and discharged about 253 million gallons of wastewater into the Neosho River. Google was the industrial park's second largest water user, behind Associated Electric Cooperative; the park holds a state permit to withdraw up to 27.375 billion gallons a year.

Nathan Cross, the industrial park's attorney, said the "contracted GRDA supply and available treatment capacity are adequate to meet foreseeable water requirements." Not everyone is reassured. Yohanes Sugeng, an engineer for the Oklahoma Water Resources Board, told state lawmakers in October 2025 that "the new and emerging users, such as data centers, will contribute to the strain depending on how data centers source water." The board projects statewide water demand will rise 18 percent over the next 20 years.

Local reaction has been more positive. "They use a lot of electric," said Tim Lawson, editor of the Pryor Information Publication. "There's no denying that. But they generate that energy and our electric rates have not increased." Lawson said the tightest pressure has been on housing, with rents rising as workers moved in: "That's more shame on Pryor, not shame on Google." Mayes County's population has grown from 33,366 in 1990 to just over 41,000 as workers have moved in for the data center jobs.

Oklahoma does not track data center water use closely. A July 2026 report by Investigate Midwest found a loophole leaves most of it untracked, including at Pryor, where the water permit is issued to the industrial park rather than to Google itself.