Both can be true, but if you subject water pricing to market forces the problem can help correct itself. That won't happen for ag pricing (strong lobby) but would get rid of the relatively minuscule residential wastefulness.

That's incredibly solvable: subsidize every household with a baseline of essential water, and charge above-market rates for everything else. Set the higher tier's price to fund an annual dividend for every citizen to offset the average food cost difference. Waste would go way down, and practices would shift to water-efficient practices.

I'm specifically talking about local elected governments managing a municipal resource that needs to respond to market supply and demand realities over the course of time where availability of said resource fluctuates. These municipalities are run by democratically elected representatives that should be acting in the best interests of their constituents -- and if not they can be replaced.

So provide tiered pricing for these larger consumers that would offset the additional pressure on existing infrastructure. If the infrastructure doesn't exist -- allow these datacenter companies to invest and build out the infrastructure that would also benefit other customers in that water district.

When industry is negotiating with local government to open a facility, often one of the stipulations is that the facility will pay no more than local residents for access to utilities (in fact, the industry may even demand a lower, privileged rate). If the local government did what you suggested, the industry would just go elsewhere. Modern industries are overall not very interested in paying more in order to build out infrastructure to benefit the community beyond their own site.

What is the issue here? Local populations don't want to use their communities to satiate the greed of a multi trillion dollar corporation.

They can afford to pay whatever the rates, they just want the public to give them more corporate welfare so they can get greedier while inflicting a surveillance state upon the masses.

The issue is that even if one community puts up resistance, the corporation will eventually find some other local government that plays ball. In the end, someone or another still gets screwed.

> Tapping into public drinking water is both easier and cheaper than paying the cost of treatment themselves. That means data centers end up competing with communities over their potable water supply.

My city has tiered pricing for water consumption based on gallons consumed per-household. Instead of the vague pearl clutching here, why can't municipalities provide preferred pricing to residential customers and have the data center consumers subsidize ongoing water treatment and infrastructure build out to support the extra capacity. Seems like a win-win.

Hmm, what if we donate to the politicians and do it the other way around instead?

You have said the actual truth

Let's hope so -- so tired of seeing cities burn to the ground

I remember Portland. Sadly it burnt to the ground. No one lives there now, because there are no buildings.

Wait, I'm hearing reports. Reports that literally no city has been burnt to the ground due to protests? None at all? And this HN account is just out of touch?

Hey metabagel! It's me, Mark Zuckerberg, please come back! Our Q4 earnings report will be due before you know it and our board will have my feet to the literal FIRE if you're not on our platform(s). Please reconsider!

This is, literally (with the politician's name and elections instead of Zuck and earnings), political ads. In big red font, with an accusatory or distraught image of the politician.

Seriously, Mark Zuckerburg doesn't really care that one person left his platform, but he actually would prefer you stay...because if enough do it will affect earnings. But you should leave Facebook not to upset Zuck, but to stop upsetting yourself with what's on there.

Or being priced out of housing because supply became artificially depressed