Gov. Greg Abbott directs the Texas Water Agency to fine data centres that don't record their water usage.

Never skip a account! The Texas Tribune’s daily publication provides viewers with the most important information from the state. Sign up for The Quick..wp-block-custom-everlit-iframe-embed{margin: 0 !important;}

Audio tracking is done automatically for convenience. The story was written and edited by people. View our Artificial policy and leave comments.

Gov. The Texas Water Development Board, the state agency in charge of overseeing the state’s water planning process, has been given the order to punish data centres that don’t record their water usage.

As few as 28 % of data centers have responded to a state-mandated water usage survey in the last three years, and Texas is grappling with the rapidly increasing demand for water from data centers and other large industrial users. The water company uses the information collected from the annual survey to calculate the state’s potential water needs.

In a media release released on Monday, Abbott said,” Data centres may share the responsibility to protect Texas water.” A thorough and accurate liquid use poll is necessary under Texas Water Code. I lead the Texas Water Development Board to rely on its protection authority to punish past errors and impose legal sanctions for any subsequent errors.

@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 100px;}}@media ( min-width: 970px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-1{min-height: 100px;}}

By October 14th, Abbott is requesting an update on compliance and protection from the liquid board. The committee did not respond to a request for comment on the governor’s policy right away.

The water table has requested regular water usage data from data centers every since 2020. Data centers must post their survey responses to the government, which is a Class C offense, as per the law, but the water board has stated that it has no authority to sue anyone because it is a non-regulatory body. And when The Texas Tribune inquired in July how numerous charges had been levied, company representatives claimed that the staff does not monitor this data and that local authorities, such as district lawyers and local law enforcement, have the authority to enforce it.

A data center might want to respond to the survey for different reasons, though. In a recent time reading involving the ocean supply planning division at TWDB, Temple McKinnon said entities may respond if they want to be granted economic permits or receive state funding.

Thousands of gallons of water are needed to cool data centers ‘ gear annually. Officially available information is frequently difficult to find, despite one of the biggest complaints about data centers being how transparent their water usage is and the dangers it might present to local residents. Just by public demand is the water board able to release survey compliance information. According to Kaci Woodrome, the club’s chief communications officer, it also only provides conformity information to law enforcement when requested, according to an email sent over the summer.

Water organizers say this information is crucial because it helps tell the state’s water planning process ‘ estimates for the next 50 years. However, not all data centres follow the survey’s instructions. Additionally, the study is certainly sent to planned services that have not yet been finished.

TWDB is tasked with creating a state water program that meets the needs of Texasans, but it cannot do so if it is denied detailed information about current and expected water consumption, according to the release.

Discover more from our investigators.

To make our reporting accessible when you search, include the Tribune to your Google search results.

The liquid study

The survey is delivered via mail to 3,200 commercial sites, including operating data centers, and around 4,700 municipal people water systems. The survey measures the monthly water volume used and simple facility details, including whether the facility self-supplies or purchases water, where that water comes from, such as groundwater or surface water, and whether or not they have on-site power generation. It does not gather data on the kind of technology that data centers use to cool their extremely popular servers. That systems is typically the most significant use of liquid for services.

The water table study targets operating services that use more than 10 million gallons annually, which the organization describes as” a major industrial person.”

The TWDB’s records indicate that the company completed the survey on a 100 % of the time. The state just surveyed fewer than five data centers between 2020 and 2022.

@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-3{min-height: 100px;}}@media ( min-width: 970px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-3{min-height: 100px;}}

Only 32 % of the 22 data centres that the panel polled in 2023 responded. 67 data centers were polled the following year, and 28 % of respondents completed the survey. And last year, 329 information centres were polled, and almost 30 % of respondents.

A few of the biggest liquid people in Rockdale, Midlothian, QTS in Fort Worth, and Meta in Fort Worth are listed as the survey’s top water users in 2025. More than 300 million gallons of water are used annually by Bitdeer, which is equivalent to the monthly water use of a small Texas town with about 3,500 people. The majority of the existing data centers are in North Texas and use the most water.

Although more data centers are being surveyed annually, total compliance is still small, primarily due to new facilities. Only 22.5 % of the 329 establishments TWDB surveyed in 2025 are new to the organization’s tracking, and only 22 % of them responded.

Abbott particularly instructed the TWDB to solve past and present violations of the reporting need. Additionally, he directed the organization to work together with the Texas Public Utility Commission, the country’s water utilities, and the Texas Electric Reliability Council on a separate assessment of data centers that want to link to the state’s power grid.

The audit, which Abbott mandated in August, aims to collect data on data centers ‘ water intake, water sources, and cooling systems. Projects that don’t pass the ERCOT inspection will be denied connection, according to the president’s order.

@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-4{min-height: 100px;}}@media ( min-width: 970px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-4{min-height: 100px;}}

The Texas Municipal Courts Education Center, which provides legal resources and professional education to provincial judges, prosecutors, and court personnel in Texas, has no focused training on the water review police of the state water code, according to Ryan Kellus Turner, the executive director of the organization. He said he would not be surprised if local authorities noticed an “increased attention given to governmental regulations of this nature” as public policy evolves regarding data center growth.

Alex Ford contributed to this investigating.

Disclosure: The Texas Tribune has received a significant financial support from Google. Meta has provided financial support for the past five decades. The Texas Tribune is a non-partisan, nonprofit news organization that receives funding from people, foundations, and corporate partners. Financial backers are not involved in our media. Get a list of them all below, along with more details about our economic and reporting procedures.

Save 20 % on Texas Tribune Festival tickets for three days! * At check, the script FLASHSALE is applied immediately. Don’t rush! Sell ends on Wednesday at midnight.

*All reservations, excluding Executive and Platinum, are subject to this policy.

JPMorganChase presents TribFest 2026.

@media ( min-width: 300px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-5{min-height: 100px;}}@media ( min-width: 970px ){.newspack_global_ad.scaip-5{min-height: 100px;}}

You’ve read article(s) this month. You have unlimited free articles remaining because we don’t have a paywall.

Your assistance is needed for separate Texas monitoring. Our readers who donate help make our work feasible, and The Texas Tribune provides fact-based reporting for Texans, by Texans. Did you make a donation of any kind to aid our nonprofit office?

Sep 14, 2026Hill Country Post

Gov. Greg Abbott directs the Texas Water Agency to fine data centres that don’t record their water usage.

Hill Country Post

About Us

Recent News

Contact Us