In late May 2026, social media users claimed that Mark Zuckerberg's data center in New Mexico had "completely drained" the Rio Grande.
One post (archived) on Substack said: "DISASTER: Mark Zuckerberg's data center in New Mexico has completely drained the Rio Grande river! The facility drinks up 75 million gallons of water every year, and he's planning to build even more. Share this video widely!"
(Substack account @rawstory)
Similar claims appeared on Instagram, Reddit and Facebook, while other posts said the data center had "sucked the Rio Grande dry" or was "rapidly depleting" the river. Snopes readers also searched for and emailed us about the claim.
The claim referred to Meta's data center in Los Lunas, New Mexico. Zuckerberg is Meta's co-founder and CEO, but the facility is operated by Meta, not by Zuckerberg personally.
The claim that the data center completely drained the Rio Grande of water is false.
Meta's Los Lunas data center does use tens of millions of gallons of water per year, and the Rio Grande Basin has faced serious water stress. But Meta told Snopes the facility receives municipal water from the village of Los Lunas, whose system is supplied by groundwater wells, and said Meta does not hold Rio Grande water rights.
A water agreement provided to Snopes also described the village's municipal permit as allowing water to be drawn "from the underground aquifer." The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer/Interstate Stream Commission told Snopes the facility purchases water from the village of Los Lunas and said a variety of factors contribute to Rio Grande drying, most notably historically dry winter conditions.
Responding to Snopes' inquiry on the matter, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation Water Operations Supervisor Carolyn Donnelly said via email there was nothing to indicate that Meta's Los Lunas data center was contributing to the Rio Grande channel drying. Rather, the agency said natural flows and releases from upstream dams, low reservoir storage and snowpack, unusually warm temperatures and a long-term drought were causing the drying in 2026.
The effects of development in the area and riparian consumption may have played a small role in the channel drying, she added, but "the hydrologic conditions this year have been extremely challenging."
What Meta's records show
Meta's 2025 Environmental Data Index showed that the Los Lunas data center withdrew about 75 million gallons of water in 2023 and about 67 million gallons in 2024. The 2023 figure likely explains the "75 million gallons" number used in social media posts. Those figures describe the facility's annual water withdrawals; they are not evidence that the data center drained the Rio Grande.
In a response to Snopes, Meta confirmed the Los Lunas data center withdrew approximately 67 million gallons of water in 2024 from the Los Lunas municipal system. The company said the village water system is supplied by four groundwater production wells, and that Meta does not hold Rio Grande water rights. Meta disputed the claim that the Los Lunas data center drained or sucked dry the Rio Grande.
Meta also provided Snopes with a March 2025 water and wastewater service agreement between the village of Los Lunas and Greater Kudu LLC, the Meta-related customer for the data center project. The agreement supports Meta's statement that the facility is served through the village water system, not through water rights held directly by Meta. It says the village's municipal permit allows it to draw water "from the underground aquifer," and it sets limits on how much water the project may use under the agreement.
The agreement also includes a capacity guarantee of up to 3 million gallons per day in a maximum-use scenario, except during a Stage 3 declared water emergency. That figure refers to reserved capacity, not the facility's typical daily water use.
Snopes found no evidence in Meta's response or the water agreement that the Los Lunas data center takes water directly from the Rio Grande. However, that finding does not address whether groundwater pumping has any indirect local hydrological effects, a question Snopes asked local and state water officials about.
Meta says its global water goal is to become "water positive" by 2030, meaning that it aims to restore more water than it consumes in watersheds where it operates.
Meta also told Snopes it had invested in seven Rio Grande watershed restoration projects that collectively restored more than 136 million gallons of water in 2024, and that once all projects are fully implemented, they are expected to restore more than 149 million gallons per year. In an April 2026 post, Meta also said it had heard from the Los Lunas community about the importance of protecting local water resources.
What officials said was drying the Rio Grande
Federal water managers already described Rio Grande drying risks in terms of drought and poor hydrology before the Meta rumor began spreading.
In an April 16, 2026, news release, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation said water managers in New Mexico were "bracing for drought conditions" caused by "the earliest snowmelt on record, one of the lowest snowpacks on record and already low reservoir storage." The agency said most reservoirs along the Rio Chama and Rio Grande were holding less than 15% of capacity, leaving little stored water to supplement river flows. Water experts have also noted that New Mexico relies heavily on mountain snowpack as a natural reservoir before it melts into rivers and storage projects in spring and summer.
The Bureau also said parts of the Rio Grande through Albuquerque could experience drying in summer 2026 because of low runoff, lack of stored water and limited water available for environmental flow support. It said drying began in the San Acacia reach on March 27, the earliest recorded date it had dried in three decades.
The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer/Interstate Stream Commission similarly told Snopes that there are "a variety of factors that contribute to the drying of the Rio Grande," most notably historically dry winter conditions. The office said drought conditions in New Mexico are among the worst on record, driven by "historically low snowpack and record high spring temperatures resulting in record low runoff levels and below average river flows throughout the state."
Other May 2026 local reports similarly described low flows and drying risks along parts of the Rio Grande, particularly near Albuquerque. However, those reports described partial drying or risk of drying in specific stretches, not evidence that the entire river had been "completely drained."
Remaining questions
Meta's response and the water agreement support that the Los Lunas data center is served by the Los Lunas municipal system, not by water taken directly from the Rio Grande.
The New Mexico Office of the State Engineer/Interstate Stream Commission told Snopes that impacts from the village of Los Lunas' total water use, including water supplied to the Meta data center, are incorporated into the office's regional water-rights modeling. The office said it does not have records of the facility's water use because the facility receives water from the village.
Snopes has not yet received responses from the village of Los Lunas about the facility's local water impact or any connection to Rio Grande flows. We will update this story if we receive responses.
Why data center water use still matters
The rumor touched on a real concern. Data centers can use large amounts of water, which is particularly problematic in regions already facing drought or water stress.
Data centers use water mainly because servers generate heat and must be cooled continuously. The U.S. Department of Energy explains that in data centers using cooling towers, heat from IT equipment is transferred through cooling systems and removed when water evaporates in a cooling tower.
Data centers can also have an indirect water footprint. A peer-reviewed 2021 article in npj Clean Water explained that data centers consume water directly for cooling and indirectly in the form of the water used to generate the electricity that powers the centers.
A 2024 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimated that U.S. data centers directly consumed 66 billion liters of water in 2023. The report estimated a much larger indirect water footprint, nearly 800 billion liters, from electricity generation associated with data center operations.
A data center's water impact depends on how much it uses, where that water comes from and whether the area is already drought-stressed. But heavy water use is not, by itself, evidence that a facility "completely drained" a river.