How Much Water Is the Data Center Next Door Using?

By Trey Wilson, Texas Real Estate and Water Lawyer · Published October 2026

The Texas Attorney General is investigating hundreds of data center developments for failing to report their water use to the State. If a data center is planned or running near your land, the investigation raises the question you have been asking all along: how much water is it using, and where is that water coming from? The city utility may have already told you no. The State’s records, and the groundwater district’s permit file, may tell you more.

On September 24, 2026, Attorney General Ken Paxton announced an investigation into Texas data center developments that have not responded to the Texas Water Development Board’s water use survey. Paxton said his office wants data centers to be “transparent about their water usage and fully compliant with the law.” Bexar County is one of 18 counties named.

For a landowner, the politics matter less than the paperwork. If a data center is pumping groundwater from the same aquifer as your well, or buying water from the same supplier you depend on, the numbers in those records can shape a groundwater permit protest, a lease or sale negotiation, or a claim years from now. I am a San Antonio native, south central Texas has been home for more than 50 years, and I have practiced Texas real estate and water law for more than 28 of them. Around here, water decides what land is worth, and the Edwards Aquifer and the groundwater districts around it have always been part of that math. This guide explains what the investigation is, what it is not, which water records exist, which ones you can get, and what to do with them.

What Is the Texas Attorney General Investigating?

Data centers that have not reported their water use to the State. The Attorney General’s September 24, 2026 release says the office is investigating data center developments that have not responded to the Water Development Board’s water use survey, and is demanding that every data center in Texas submit a response in full compliance with the law. The release describes the investigation as ongoing and covering all data center developments in Texas, with an initial focus on 18 counties.

The release does not say how many developments are involved beyond “hundreds,” which companies are being investigated, what investigative tools the office is using, or what deadline it has set. Those details may come out later. For now, it is an investigation, and no lawsuit has been announced.

How the investigation fits with the Governor’s actions

The investigation is the third of three state actions in September 2026:

• September 14: Governor Greg Abbott directed the Water Development Board to use its enforcement authority against data centers that do not report, stating that non-responding facilities appeared to have committed civil and criminal violations, and to coordinate with the ERCOT data center audit. He asked the Board for a compliance and enforcement update by October 14, 2026.
• September 21: The Governor directed the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to “pause the issuance of all permits related to data center projects until ERCOT completes its review,” and stated that no other state agency should move forward with regulatory approvals related to data centers until the state audits are done. You can read the Governor’s letter. I cover the earlier August pause in Abbott’s Data Center Pause: What It Means for Texas Landowners.
• September 24: The Attorney General announced the investigation.

The underlying problem is a compliance gap. The Texas Tribune reported in June 2026 that most data centers the Board surveyed had not responded. The reported percentages vary by year and by how facilities are counted, but in each recent survey year a majority of the data centers surveyed did not return the survey.

Which Texas Counties Are Named in the Data Center Investigation?

The Attorney General’s release lists 18 counties where data centers are under initial investigation:

The list is described as initial. If your county is not on it, that does not mean data centers there are in compliance, or that they are outside the investigation. Medina, Comal, Guadalupe, and Atascosa Counties, where much of the South Central Texas data center activity is happening, are not named in the initial list. The reporting law applies statewide.

What Does the Paxton Investigation Mean for Texas Landowners?

The investigation is aimed at getting data center water use numbers to the State’s water planners. Its effect on an individual landowner is indirect, but real.

More water use records may soon exist

If the investigation works, data centers that never responded to the survey will file responses. A record that does not exist today may exist in a few months. If you request a facility’s survey and learn that none was filed, calendar a follow-up request.

A data center that does not report has a surface water problem

Under Section 16.012(m), a person that fails to return the survey is ineligible for permits, permit amendments, and permit renewals from the TCEQ under Water Code Chapter 11, the surface water rights chapter. A data center that intends to rely on surface water, or on a supplier seeking new surface water rights for it, has a reason to come into compliance.

It does not reach groundwater district permits

The permit bar in Section 16.012(m) is limited to TCEQ permits under Chapter 11. It does not, by its terms, prevent a groundwater conservation district from issuing a well permit under Water Code Chapter 36. For a well owner, the groundwater district remains the place where the decisions that matter are made.

It does not give you a claim

Section 16.012(m) sets out what happens to a facility that does not report: loss of funding eligibility, the Chapter 11 permit bar, and a Class C misdemeanor. Nothing in it gives a neighboring landowner a private right to sue. If a data center’s pumping or construction affects your property, your remedies come from groundwater, surface water, nuisance, and property law, not from the reporting statute.

The Attorney General’s file is not likely to be public soon

Records connected to an ongoing investigation or anticipated litigation are often withheld under exceptions in the Public Information Act, including Section 552.103. Do not count on the Attorney General’s investigative file. The survey responses themselves, held by the Water Development Board, are a different matter.

Is a Texas Data Center’s Water Use Public Record?

It depends on who holds the record. The Texas Public Information Act applies differently to a city water utility, a state agency, and a groundwater district.

Why the city water utility may say no

Government Code Section 552.1331, added by House Bill 872 in 2021, excepts from public disclosure information a government-operated utility collects through an advanced metering system about usage, services, and billing. Many Texas utilities have moved to advanced meters.

The exception was presented as a privacy protection for households. In practice it has been applied to businesses. In July 2026, KSAT reported that the San Antonio Water System declined to release water usage for 36 Bexar County data centers, relying on Section 552.1331 and a February 2026 Attorney General ruling that applied the exception to a commercial account in Corpus Christi. The bill’s author, State Representative Diego Bernal, told KSAT the law was meant to protect individuals and families.

The result is an odd one. The Attorney General’s office is investigating data centers for failing to report their water use to the State, while the same office’s open records rulings allow a city utility to keep that use from the public. Unless the Legislature changes the statute, expect a city-owned utility to withhold metered usage for a data center account.

The “customer privacy” objection does not cover a business

Some utilities also cite Utilities Code Section 182.052, which lets a utility customer ask that account information be kept confidential. The Attorney General has ruled that this protection applies only to natural persons, and does not protect information about businesses or other artificial entities (Open Records Letter Ruling OR2019-30608). A data center company is not a natural person. If a utility relies on Section 182.052 alone to withhold a data center’s information, that reliance is misplaced. Section 552.1331 is the real obstacle.

The utility is not the only record holder

Section 552.1331 protects information held by a government-operated utility, the entity that sells the water. It says nothing about a state agency that surveys water users, a groundwater district that permits wells, or a city council that approves a water supply contract. Those are the doors that remain open.

Do Texas Data Centers Have to Report Their Water Use?

Yes, if the State asks.

The Texas Water Development Board water use survey

Under Water Code Section 16.012(m), the Board’s executive administrator may survey entities using groundwater and surface water for municipal, industrial, power generation, or mining purposes, and “Recipients of the survey shall complete and return the survey to the executive administrator.”

The Board runs this as its annual Water Use Survey. According to the Board’s survey FAQ, the industrial survey goes to roughly 3,300 facilities, including manufacturing, mining, data center, and steam-electric water users. Surveys are due each year by March 1. The Board uses the data for long-term water supply planning.

What happens when a data center does not respond?

Section 16.012(m) carries three consequences for a person who does not timely complete and return the survey:

• It is not eligible for funding from Board programs.
• It is ineligible to obtain permits, permit amendments, or permit renewals from the TCEQ under Water Code Chapter 11.
• It commits an offense punishable as a Class C misdemeanor.

A Class C misdemeanor is a fine-only offense. For a billion-dollar facility, the permit consequence and the public pressure from the Governor and the Attorney General likely matter more than the fine.

How to Request a Data Center’s Water Use Survey From the State

This is the part of the story most coverage has missed. Before 2003, Section 16.012(m) excepted surveys from nongovernmental entities from the Public Information Act. House Bill 1378 deleted that exception. Later that year, the Attorney General ruled that survey information held by the Board could not be withheld under Section 16.012(m) and had to be released (Open Records Letter Ruling OR2003-05286). Current law has no confidentiality provision for the survey responses themselves. Section 16.012(n) protects certain site-specific groundwater field data on private land if the landowner asks, which is a different category of information.

That does not guarantee you will get a particular data center’s response. Here is how the process works:

1. Make a written request. The Board accepts requests through its public information portal, by email to the address listed on its open records page, or by mail. Identify the facility as specifically as you can: company name, operator, street address, county, and the survey years you want.
2. Expect the company to be notified. If the Board decides to seek an Attorney General ruling, it must make a good-faith attempt to notify a company whose proprietary information may be involved. Under Government Code Section 552.305, the company then has until the 10th business day after it receives notice to tell the Attorney General why the information should be withheld.
3. Expect a trade secret or commercial harm argument. Data center operators have described their water information as proprietary. Under the Act, the company must demonstrate that an exception applies. A confidentiality request or a general claim of competitive harm is not enough.
4. Know that the record may not exist. If the facility never returned its survey, there is no response to produce. That fact is useful too. It tells you the operator is out of compliance with a reporting law the Governor and the Attorney General are now enforcing.

Is the Data Center Pumping Groundwater Near My Well?

For a rural landowner, this is the question that matters most. Many data centers buy water from a city or water supplier. Others drill their own wells, or lease groundwater rights from neighboring landowners. If the facility pumps from the aquifer your well draws from, the groundwater district file is where to look.

Groundwater conservation district permits and reports

Most of Texas is covered by a groundwater conservation district operating under Water Code Chapter 36. Three provisions matter here:

• The data center well will not be exempt. Section 36.117(b)(1) exempts wells used solely for domestic use or livestock and poultry on tracts larger than 10 acres that are incapable of producing more than 25,000 gallons a day. A data center supply well is not that kind of well. It needs a district permit. I explain the exemption in Exempt Water Wells in Texas.
• Districts can require production reports. Under Section 36.111, a district may require records and reports of the drilling, equipping, and completing of wells and of the production and use of groundwater, and may adopt rules requiring permit holders to report their withdrawals. Ask the district what its rules require and request the reports filed for the facility’s wells.
• The district must consider your well. Under Section 36.113(d)(2), before granting or denying a permit, the district must consider whether “the proposed use of water unreasonably affects existing groundwater and surface water resources or existing permit holders.”

Ask the district for the complete permit file: the application, any hydrogeological report or aquifer test, the public notice, the staff recommendation, the permit as issued, meter and production reports, and correspondence. A groundwater district regulates wells. It does not sell water to the data center, so the utility metering exception in Section 552.1331 should not, on its face, reach those records. The applicant may still assert other exceptions for particular documents.

Edwards Aquifer Authority permits in South Central Texas

In much of Bexar, Medina, and Uvalde Counties and parts of Comal, Hays, Guadalupe, Caldwell, and Atascosa Counties, Edwards Aquifer pumping is regulated by the Edwards Aquifer Authority under its own statute and rules, not by a Chapter 36 district. Edwards withdrawal rights are permitted and can be transferred or leased. According to the Authority’s groundwater use reporting page, permit holders and contract users must read each well’s meter monthly and annually and report their use.

If a data center in the Edwards region is acquiring or leasing withdrawal rights, the transfer and permit records will show how much water it has secured and from which wells. I discuss how the Authority fits into local development in Medina County Data Centers: What Landowners Need to Know.

What if there is no groundwater district?

Parts of Texas have no groundwater conservation district. There, the rule of capture applies with few regulatory limits, no permit file exists, and the Water Development Board survey and county records may be the only sources of information. That is a harder place to be a well owner. I explain the rule of capture and its limits in Will a Data Center Drain My Water Well? and groundwater ownership in Who Owns the Groundwater Under Texas Lands? If you are not sure which aquifer you draw from, start with What Groundwater Aquifer Is Beneath Your Property?

Surface Water and Water Supply Contracts

When a data center buys water rather than pumping it, the volume is often written into a contract or a public approval long before the first meter reading.

• Water supply agreements. A contract with a city, river authority, or water district to supply a data center is a public record of the governmental body that signs it. It often states a reserved or maximum volume. The metering exception in Section 552.1331 covers usage and billing data, not the contract itself.
• Surface water rights. Water in a Texas river or creek is state water, and appropriating it requires a permit from the TCEQ under Water Code Section 11.121. The TCEQ makes water rights permits and pending applications available to the public. A data center that has not returned its survey is ineligible for these permits under Section 16.012(m).
• Agendas and backup materials. City council, commissioners court, and utility board agendas often include utility service letters, development agreements, and staff reports estimating water demand. The supporting packet is usually more informative than the agenda line.
• Tax abatement and incentive agreements. Once signed, local incentive agreements are public, and some include water conservation or reuse commitments. Before a deal is signed, the government can withhold information about incentives being offered to a business prospect under Government Code Section 552.131, so expect less while negotiations are pending. The Texas Comptroller collects local abatement agreements.

How these approvals are made, and when they can be challenged, is covered in Texas Data Center Litigation: Challenging Governmental Approvals.

Where to Look: Texas Data Center Water Records at a Glance

What the Numbers Will and Won’t Tell You

Water records are only useful if you read them for what they are. A few cautions:

• Reported, permitted, and contracted are different numbers. A survey reports what was used. A permit sets what may be pumped. A supply contract reserves what may be delivered. A project may report modest use today against a permit or contract that allows far more.
• Cooling design drives water demand. Some facilities use evaporative cooling and consume significant water. Others use closed-loop or air-based systems and use much less. The engineering, not the building’s size, decides which.
• Data centers are built in phases. A survey covering the first building may say little about the campus at full build-out.
• Purchased water and pumped water have different effects. A data center on a city supply may not affect your well directly, but the supplier may in turn be expanding its own wells or contracts.
• Timing matters. The survey reports a prior calendar year. A facility that began operating recently may not appear yet.

A data center is not a warehouse with computers in it. Its water demand is an engineering choice, and the records tell you which choice was made.

How Texas Landowners Can Use Data Center Water Records

Participating in a groundwater permit hearing

A district permit application for a large new well is usually the best and earliest opportunity for a neighboring well owner to be heard. Districts limit participation in a contested case hearing to persons with a personal justiciable interest under Water Code Section 36.415, not the public at large. A landowner with a well in the same aquifer near the proposed wells is in a far better position to show that interest than a member of the public. The deadline to protest and request a hearing is set in the district’s public notice and its rules. Miss it, and you may lose the right to participate.

Documenting your own well before the pumping starts

If the data center’s wells are not yet drilled or running, record the condition of your well now: static water level, pump setting, well depth, yield, and water quality, with dates and photographs. Combined with the data center’s permit and production records, that baseline is what lets you show change later. Without it, every later argument starts with a dispute about what your well used to do.

Evaluating a claim

Texas law protects groundwater ownership, but the rule of capture limits the claims available against a neighbor’s lawful pumping. Permit terms, district rules, waste, and negligent or malicious conduct can change the analysis. Water records are the starting point for determining whether you have a regulatory remedy, a legal claim, or neither.

Negotiating with the developer

If a developer wants to buy or lease your land or your groundwater, its own permit applications and supply contracts tell you how much water the project needs and how badly it needs yours. That is negotiating information. I cover groundwater terms in a sale in A Texas Landowner’s Guide to Selling Property for a Data Center, in a long-term lease in Leasing Your Land to a Data Center in Texas, and in transactions generally in Liability Theories in Transactions Involving Texas Groundwater.

What to Do in the First 48 Hours

If you have just learned a data center is planned or operating near your well, these steps cost little, and several cannot be done after the fact.

1. List every name on the project. Pull the deed from the county clerk and the appraisal district account, and check city and county agendas. Write down the developer, any project code name, and the single-purpose company that owns the land.
2. Find your groundwater authority. Use the Water Development Board’s district map, or confirm whether you are within the Edwards Aquifer Authority.
3. Ask for the permit file and get on the notice list. Request any pending or issued permit for the facility’s wells, and sign up for the district’s meeting and permit notices. Write down any protest deadline the day you see it.
4. Test and record your well. Static water level, pump setting, yield, and a water quality panel from a certified lab, with dates and photographs.
5. Request the State’s survey records. Send a public information request to the Water Development Board for the facility’s water use survey responses, naming every entity on your list.
6. Pull the local paperwork. Agenda packets, utility service letters, water supply contracts, and any development or incentive agreement.
7. Keep everything. Letters, offers, notices, and responses, with the envelopes they came in.

For the full pre-construction picture, including deed restrictions and process challenges, see the first-48-hours checklist in Can I Stop a Data Center Next to My Texas Property?

Related Guides

• Texas Data Center Landowner Attorney, the hub for this series
• Will a Data Center Drain My Water Well?
• Abbott’s Data Center Pause: What It Means for Texas Landowners
• Can I Stop a Data Center Next to My Texas Property?
• Medina County Data Centers: What Landowners Need to Know
• Living Next to a Data Center: A Texas Landowner’s Guide
• Can Texas Cities and Counties Ban Data Centers?
• Texas Lawmakers to Study Data Centers