Commentaries at the San Antonio Report provide space for our community to share perspectives and offer solutions to pressing local issues. The views expressed in this commentary belong to the author alone.
I don’t live in the city. I live on top of well water. When you turn on the tap out here in northwest Bexar County, the water doesn’t come from a distant reservoir or a municipal pipeline. It comes straight from the ground under your boots. Most folks in this part of the county rely on wells, and for the most part they’ve worked just fine for years.
Recently, my well went dry without warning. One day it was working, the next day my water meter was at zero.
Anyone who lives on rural groundwater knows that wells fluctuate. They can drop during droughts and then they recover. But when changes happen quickly or all at once, people living on the land begin to look for answers.
That’s why I’ve been paying close attention to news about data center development in and around San Antonio.
CPS Energy already provides power to 21 data centers in the area, with another 59 projects in various stages of planning. That kind of growth brings jobs, investment and long-term economic opportunity.
It also brings new demands on infrastructure.
A lot of focus has been on electricity demand, which makes sense. Data centers require enormous amounts of power, and it’s good that people are thinking seriously about how to supply it without destabilizing the grid. Anyone who lived here during Winter Storm Uri would agree.
But standing in my backyard looking at a dry well, I can’t help but wonder whether the people permitting, planning and building these facilities are talking about another critical resource: water.
Data centers use water for cooling and other operations. When projects are built in areas where residents rely on groundwater, it’s reasonable for people to ask how those demands might affect local supplies.
I’m not against development or businesses coming to Texas. Growth is part of what keeps the state moving forward.
But it’s also fair to ask how that growth fits alongside the people who already live here.
In rural areas, groundwater is what keeps homes, ranches and small farms running. When wells stop producing, families have to find alternatives quickly.
In his State of the Union last month, President Donald Trump raised the idea that data centers may need to produce more of their own power instead of putting all the demand on the electric grid.
That seems like a practical conversation to have.
But if companies are being asked to think about generating their own power, should they also be thinking about how they manage water?
Texas leaders are taking water seriously. Last year, I supported the state’s $20 billion investment in water infrastructure and I was glad to join Governor Greg Abbott in backing it. The investment recognizes something Texans already know: water infrastructure and water supply take time to develop and planning ahead matters.
At the same time, new technologies are starting to appear at both the community and facility level that can help supplement water supplies. Some systems recycle water inside facilities. Others can produce water locally from humidity in the air.
When my well dried up, I started looking into options like that just to make sure my family had water available year-round.
If those kinds of solutions can help rural landowners deal with drought and uncertainty, they might also be worth considering as part of how large industrial facilities manage water use.
San Antonio is doing the right thing by preparing for growth. But as we look at the next wave of data center projects, it’s worth asking a simple question:
Are we planning for water the same way we’re planning for power?
