It's which side of the drainage basin is the water moved to? When the water is flushed back into the system, does it drain back into the Great Lakes? or down to the Gulf of Mexico?

On the southern shore of Lake Michigan, that "few miles" changes the watershed that its part of.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Basin ( https://www.erbff.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/10.8.25-Gre... for a high resolution map)

As for diversions that go to evaporative cooling, that's a big question for the data center itself and there are many designs. https://www.nrel.gov/computational-science/data-center-cooli... has some cutting edge designs, but they're more expensive to use for pumping waste heat elsewhere.

Sometimes you get data centers that look like https://www.oregonlive.com/silicon-forest/2021/11/the-dalles... ... and that's not a little bit of water there.

While the Great Lakes are coming off of wet years ( https://water.usace.army.mil/office/lre/docs/waterleveldata/... ) that shouldn't be used as long term prediction of what will be available in another 10 years lest it becomes another Colorado river problem. Currently, the water levels for Lake Michigan are lower than average and not predicted to return to average in the model range. https://water.usace.army.mil/office/lre/docs/mboglwl/MBOGLWL... . You'll note that this isn't at the minimums from the 1960s... and the Great Lakes Compact was signed in 2008.

You can search the database for the authorized diversions of the water. https://www.glslcompactcouncil.org/historical-information/ba...

For example, Nine Mile Point - https://www.glslcompactcouncil.org/historical-information/ba...

Wisconsin communities signed secrecy deals for billion-dollar data centers