Part of Project Jupiter Watch — the public record of the $165B data-center deal in Doña Ana County, NM. New here? Start with the Film →
Dossier · Who's Who
Margaret Cook
A Houston Advanced Research Center vice president who testified to a New Mexico interim legislative committee on September 1, 2026 about data-center water use in the state.
At a glance
- Current role
- Vice President of Water and Community Resilience, Houston Advanced Research Center[1]
- Category
- Academic or researcher
- Verification
- confirmed — Two independent accounts agree
- In the record
- 1 sources · 1 connections · 1 dated entries
- Record id
- PJP179
Key facts
- 2026-09-01Told the interim Water and Natural Resources Committee that data centers in New Mexico currently use just over 500 million gallons a year, about half of one percent of state water use.[1]
- Testified that every facility now planned would take that to 23.6 billion gallons a year, most of it indirect, for cooling the plants that power them.[1]
- The 23.6-billion figure is testimony, not a published study.
- Cook's caveat: “There's a lot of data uncertainty with data centers, which is a bit ironic. The lack of transparency from data centers means that we don't have enough information for planning.”[1]
The record
Vice President of Water and Community Resilience at the Houston Advanced Research Center.
On September 1, 2026 she told New Mexico's interim Water and Natural Resources Committee that data centers in the state currently use just over 500 million gallons a year — about half of one percent of state water use — and that every facility now planned would take that to 23.6 billion gallons a year, most of it indirect, for cooling the plants that power them.
Her own caveat is the part to keep: "There's a lot of data uncertainty with data centers, which is a bit ironic. The lack of transparency from data centers means that we don't have enough information for planning."
Relationships · 1
In the timeline · 1
Dated entries in the record that involve this party. Appearing here is not an allegation — it means the graph draws an edge from this dossier to that event.
Sources · 1
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