Amazon agreed to pay $20.5 million to settle allegations that its data centers in an Oregon county contributed to a water contamination problem in the area. In the settlement, the tech giant will make no admission of guilt for the pollution. The Oregonian reporter Mike Rogoway said Amazon was accused of contributing to groundwater pollution in Morrow County. “Folks out in eastern Oregon have been dealing for years with nitrate pollution in the groundwater that has polluted wells and drinking water in the area. This doesn’t come from the data centers. The pollution doesn’t. It’s nitrates from fertilizer and other farm activities in the area,” Rogoway explained. “The allegation, though, is that Amazon, which uses huge volumes of water to cool its data centers out there, has been contributing to the problem because the data centers use water that has nitrate in it from the area. That water evaporates, most of it, during the cooling process. What’s left is allegedly concentrated with nitrates, and it goes back over the farmland, seeping back into the groundwater,” he continued. “Amazon denies any wrongdoing here. They say that their water runoff has very low levels of nitrates and overall, they’re a fairly low water user in the area, relative to some of the other water users in the area,” he added. “They say they agreed to the settlement in the interest of helping the community with its wastewater problem,” Rogoway noted. Watch below: Amazon agrees to pay $20.5 million to settle allegations that its data centers in Morrow County Oregon contributed to contaminating ground water with nitrate pollution in the agricultural community Here’s what happens – Amazon uses huge volumes of water to cool its data centers… pic.twitter.com/RSNR1Y4QHw — Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) April 6, 2026 More from The Oregonian: A lawsuit continues on behalf of local residents against food processors, farms, utilities and the Port of Morrow. “We appreciate Amazon taking the first step toward solving the nitrate pollution problem, but the work is far from over,” said Steve Berman, attorney for the plaintiffs. His firm, Hagens Berman, said funds from the settlement will support private well and public water projects to provide clean water for people living in the Lower Umatilla Basin. Money from Amazon’s settlement will be disbursed to households that use wells to help them access clean water supplies, according to legal filings Tuesday. A court-appointed administrator will notify eligible households. “Our data centers draw from the same water supply as other local residents, we don’t add nitrates to that water, and the water we return represents a very small fraction of the region’s overall system,” Amazon said in a written statement Tuesday. “We don’t agree with the allegations in the lawsuit, and we sought an early settlement because we wanted to focus our time and resources on supporting the community rather than on litigation.” Data centers use enormous volumes of water to cool their computers, with much of the water evaporating during the cooling process. Amazon’s water in Morrow County comes largely from the Port of Morrow, which drew it from local wells with high concentrations of nitrates. “Amazon is one of 17 total defendants, including 10 previously unnamed ones, in Pearson v. Port of Morrow, a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in February 2024 by several Morrow County residents who cannot drink their nitrate-contaminated water,” Oregon Capital Chronicle wrote. “The pollution is in part a byproduct of fertilizer-laden wastewater collected from industrial food processors and data centers at the port that is then sent out to area farms to be spread across fields,” it continued. Amazon settles Oregon nitrate pollution lawsuit for $20.5M https://t.co/b22lcVgVLz pic.twitter.com/vD3UjNoM7Q — KIRO 7 (@KIRO7Seattle) April 6, 2026 Oregon Capital Chronicle shared further: The port’s wastewater, which a Capital Chronicle investigation found was overapplied in the winter for years, allowed excess nitrate to seep into groundwater that well-users in the area depend on. Many of those who rely on wells in the affected areas of Morrow and Umatilla counties are low-income and Latino. Overexposure to nitrates over time is harmful to infants and can lead to cancer and thyroid disease in people of all ages. The nitrate-loaded wastewater also ends up at Amazon’s data center facilities at the port, where the water is used to cool computer servers running 24/7. The water heats up and condenses as it cools the computers, further elevating the concentration of nitrate it holds before also being end-use applied to area farm fields. Kylee Yonas, an Amazon spokesperson, denied allegations in the lawsuit that the company has contributed to the groundwater contamination. “Communities in Eastern Oregon have faced groundwater quality issues for decades — long before we opened our data centers,” she said in a statement. KGW News provided additional coverage: