Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has directed the Texas Water Development Board to penalize data centers that fail to report their water usage, after state records showed most facilities have ignored the mandatory survey for years.
The Texas Tribune reports that the directive follows a rough stretch of compliance numbers: less than 30 percent of data centers responded to the state’s water usage survey last year, and response rates dipped as low as 28 percent over the past three years. Abbott wants an update from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) on compliance and enforcement by the middle of October.
“Data centers must share the duty to protect Texas water,” Abbott said. “The Texas Water Code requires a complete and accurate water use survey. I direct the Texas Water Development Board to use its enforcement authority to penalize past failures and to impose legal consequences for any future failure to comply.”
Since 2020, the TWDB has surveyed data centers and other industrial facilities every year, asking for monthly water use figures. State law requires facilities to respond or face a Class C misdemeanor, but the agency says it can’t actually prosecute anyone. It’s a non-regulatory body. That job falls to local officials, including district attorneys and law enforcement, agency officials said. TWDB staff told the Texas Tribune in July that they don’t even track how many fines, if any, have been issued.
The board said it would “compel all water users” to comply, and defended the need for detailed data: “TWDB is charged with developing a state water plan that meets the needs of Texans and cannot perform that task if it is denied detailed information on existing and anticipated water consumption.”
The survey goes out by mail to roughly 4,700 municipal water systems and 3,200 industrial facilities, including data centers that use more than 10 million gallons a year, a threshold the agency considers “a significant industrial user.” It asks for annual water volume, whether a facility buys or self-supplies its water, the water source, and whether the facility generates its own power on site. It does not ask about cooling technology, which has historically been the largest source of water use at these facilities.
Hellbound and Down 