Microsoft recently announced transferring its water treatment plant to the City of Quincy.

Here is an article on how water is impacting other industries.

Water Woes Hit Gap, Kraft, Nestle, MillerCoors

Companies including Gap, Kraft and MillerCoors are all dealing with financial hits from water shortages and floods, according to news reports.

The Gap cut its profit forecast by 22 percent after the Texas drought killed much of the year’s cotton crop, Reuters said. Kraft, Sara Lee and Nestle have all announced plans to raise product prices after droughts and floods drove up commodity prices.

For you beer drinkers which I think there are a few in the data center crowd. Water efficiency in an initiative in beer companies.

In the Guardian, MillerCoors head of corporate social responsibility Kim Marotta said the company has had to put “considerable funds” into water-related projects that don’t offer the kinds of returns on investment the company looks for, simply because the initiatives are necessary to keep the business going. In one major investment, the company recently bought a new pasteurizer water reclaim system that it says will save up to 20 million gallons a year.

MillerCoors is also working with farmers to reform their irrigation practices. It has created a “showcase farm,” in collaboration with the Nature Conservancy and an Idaho farmer, and plans to invite all 500 of its suppliers there.

Although one of its parent companies, SABMiller, reported an eight percent improvement in water efficiency from 2008 to 2010, MillerCoors’ water-to-beer ratio has remained constant. The company has a goal of reducing the ratio by 15 percent to 3.5:1 by 2015.

At some point we are going to hear about water impacting a data center. Quite a few years ago, T-Mobile's data center was flooded and they moved to Sabey data centers in Quincy.