![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_C.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
layton Tucker\u2019s family has owned a cattle farm in Lampasas, Texas, for four generations. In Texas, cattle prices are linked to rainfall, Tucker explained. In particularly bad drought years<\/a>, like 2021-2024, there\u2019s less hay. The price of cattle plummets.<\/p>\n \u201cThe closest hay we could find was five hours away, and that forced everyone to start selling off half of their herds,\u201d Tucker remembered. \u201cWe had to sell off a significant number of our head of cattle. There just wasn\u2019t enough water, wasn\u2019t enough grass, wasn\u2019t enough hay.\u201d<\/p>\n Tucker is a 35-year-old Central Texas farmer, which is becoming something of a rarity these days. Growing up in a rural community, Tucker watched as local farmers were pushed out by large meat, veggie, and dairy corporations. John Deere and monopolizing product processors have price-gouged small farmers into not being able to afford the essentials, he said.<\/p>\n And now that Texas faces climbing<\/a> annual temperatures, ever-worsening drought, and irrigation and livestock water demand already outpacing<\/a> available supplies, a generation whose parents were farmers are now considering other careers.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of farmers are wanting to get out,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cTo be frank, when farming is no longer affordable, when it\u2019s no longer a middle-class way of life, people have to get out.\u201d<\/p>\n Texas lost nearly 18,000 farms<\/a> between 2017 and 2022 and 2,000 farms<\/a> in 2025 alone, the highest loss that year out of any U.S. state<\/a>. Tucker, who serves as the secretary of the Texas Farmers Union, noted that many family farms used to be around 30 acres. \u201cNow the average farm is, I want to say, about 400 to 500 acres,\u201d he continued. \u201cIt\u2019s a sign that our system has failed small farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n Now that he\u2019s running for Texas commissioner of agriculture, Tucker is trying to warn farmers about yet another rising threat to the dwindling water and land availability for agriculture: data centers \u2013 buildings that store global tech giants\u2019 data on rows of whirring, hot server racks. The campuses can span hundreds to thousands of acres.<\/p>\n Now, over a hundred<\/a> more data centers are coming to Texas in an attempt to keep pace with artificial intelligence\u2019s demand<\/a> for data storage. The server racks need to be constantly cooled to prevent overheating and fire, and most data centers rely on local water supplies to do that. In Texas, data centers used 25 billion gallons<\/a> of water in 2025, a number projected to balloon up to 161 billion gallons by 2030.<\/p>\n On the energy side, in an April filing<\/a> to the Texas Public Utility Commission, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas projects that peak demand on the grid could climb to about 367,000 megawatts by 2032, largely because of data centers\u2019 requests to plug into the state grid. ERCOT\u2019s current record for peak demand is roughly 85,000 MW.<\/p>\n As data centers rapidly emerge, Texas is on track<\/a> to overtake the world\u2019s current largest data market region, Northern Virginia, by 2030. And within the state, Central Texas is rising as a data center hot spot, with over 30 data centers being developed right now across Bexar, Comal, Hays, Travis, Caldwell, and Williamson counties, according to a community-maintained tracker<\/a>.<\/p>\n Why is Texas attractive to data center developers? There are a few different factors. They\u2019re looking for huge swaths of open land that municipalities and private landowners are willing to sell, and generous water and energy grid access.\u00a0<\/p>\n Plus, they get significant state sales tax breaks<\/a> that help cover electricity and cooling systems, server hardware, and other costs as passed<\/a> by the Texas Legislature in 2013. Texas will grant data center operators $1.3 billion in tax exemptions in 2026 and lose $3.2 billion over the next two years, according to the comptroller\u2019s office, The Texas Tribune reported<\/a> in early April.<\/p>\n In other states with desirable land availability for data center developers, like Florida<\/a>, Wisconsin<\/a>, and California<\/a>, some municipalities have hit the brakes on how many data centers they allow to be built, concerned about the drain on local resources.<\/p>\n But even as Texas considers desalinating water from the Gulf of Mexico for our future drinking water supply, Gov. Greg Abbott is welcoming the largest data centers<\/a> in the country to the state. \u201cTexas is the epicenter of AI development,\u201d Abbott touted<\/a> after Google invested $40 billion in part toward new data centers in Texas last November.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf all these states that are much more wet than Texas don\u2019t have the water, then why do we have the water?\u201d Tucker asked.<\/p>\n And water use in Texas is changing. Roland Ruiz is the general manager of the Edwards Aquifer Authority, which has long granted groundwater pumping permits to farmers across Medina, Uvalde, Comal, and Hays counties. He told the Chronicle that a lot of water that was once allocated for agricultural use is now being switched to municipal or industrial use.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re seeing farming operations being pushed further out into more rural areas \u2026 at least in close proximity to San Antonio, it\u2019s moving further out west,\u201d Ruiz continued.<\/p>\n Ruiz has noticed that some farmers in the region are taking advantage of a profitable exit from the agricultural industry: selling their farmland to data center operators.<\/p>\n \u201cI know people who had farmland, and they farmed it for generations, and they made the decision. And I\u2019m sure it was a hard decision to sell their farmland to, let\u2019s say, a data center operator, be it Microsoft or whomever,\u201d Ruiz said reflectively. \u201cBut they decided it was time to retire from that way of life, and that was a way out for them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNow, their neighbors are left with the reality that there\u2019s now a data center next door, so that\u2019s kind of the rub,\u201d Ruiz continued. \u201cIt\u2019s changing their way of life. It\u2019s changing their rural landscape. I think we\u2019ve seen decades of urban sprawl, and these data centers are just the latest form of that.\u201d<\/p>\n Data centers are also often sources of noise and air pollution for the local residents. An October 2025 study<\/a> notes that they emit \u201cfine particulate matter\u201d that can enter the lungs \u2013 mostly from fossil fuel and diesel-powered electricity generators \u2013 and estimates U.S. data centers could contribute to approximately 600,000 asthma cases in 2028. Their generators, fans, and turbines can hum 24\/7 at over 90 decibels<\/a>. Exposure to over 65 decibels is proven to damage health.<\/p>\n Tucker emphasized that data centers can also affect the quality of the soil and local water sources for farming. \u201cWhere they built a lot of these things, wells ran dry. And the ones that didn\u2019t became toxic with nitrates, with heavy metals,\u201d he said. \u201cIt diminishes water health, diminishes soil health, and diminishes even food nutrition itself.\u201d<\/p>\n Beyond pollution, data centers are heating up the land itself, preliminary findings<\/a> from a March University of Cambridge study show. Surface temperatures near existing data centers increased by an average of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, and in some cases as high as 16.4 degrees, raising temperatures up to 6 miles away. Summer heat is already a major cause of death for Texas cattle.<\/p>\n In a generation when Texas farmers are leaving the industry, data center developers are buying up farmland, and climate change continues to cause severe drought, Tucker worries that data centers could spell a bleak future for Texas agriculture and those who depend on it.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause the farmers are able to produce less, that means food prices at the grocery store will continue to inflate,\u201d Tucker said. \u201cIt creates a vicious feedback loop where farmers make less money, grow less crops, and then the food that is produced becomes more expensive, less healthy, and less nutritious.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Abbott\u2019s enthusiasm for AI infrastructure, the Texas Farmers Union has called<\/a> for an \u201cimmediate halt\u201d to new data center construction until the state adopts stronger regulation of their public water and power usage, and supports stripping their tax subsidies.<\/p>\n \u201cWe realize that if these data centers come up, they\u2019ll drain Texas dry,\u201d Tucker continued. \u201cAnd agriculture will be the sacrificial lamb. First up for slaughter.\u201d<\/p>\n Uhland, Texas, is a little rural town just 30 miles southeast of Austin, full of single-family homes, quiet suburban streets, and grazing cattle on sprawling open fields. Fernando and Wendy Tristan have called Uhland, and the 7-acre farm they own, home for nearly three decades.<\/p>\n But at an open house called on April 6, PowerHouse Data Centers<\/a> brought Uhland residents a proposal to build a 500-acre data center campus directly next door to the Tristans\u2019 farm.\u00a0<\/p>\n The developers were met with heavy resistance from the Tristans and other Uhland locals. \u201cOur property is literally a stone\u2019s throw away,\u201d Wendy told the Chronicle on April 11. \u201cI asked [the PowerHouse representative\u2019s] partner directly, \u2018Would you live next to this data center?\u2019 He couldn\u2019t answer. He looked us straight in the face and couldn\u2019t answer.\u201d<\/p>\n The day after the open house, April 7, Uhland City Council was set to vote<\/a> to rezone the 800-acre tract of land for industrial use, allowing the data center to be built. But that afternoon, Council Member Guadalupe Garza announced<\/a> on social media that she had received word from PowerHouse that their proposal on the agenda was \u201cno longer in play.\u201d At the meeting, council members didn\u2019t even vote on the item.<\/p>\n The initial reaction from Uhland residents to the announcement was relief, until community leaders pointed out that PowerHouse could still apply to extract the land from the city of Uhland\u2019s extraterritorial jurisdiction<\/a> and zoning regulations, which would place their development proposal under Caldwell County\u2019s jurisdiction and approval.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no zoning in the county. The applicant intends to de-annex from the City of Uhland ETJ, they will be able to build the data center on the existing location,\u201d the city wrote to the Chronicle.<\/p>\n Caldwell County Commissioner Ed Theriot, whose precinct includes a part of Uhland, confirmed to the Chronicle on April 28 that PowerHouse has contacted the county inquiring about the proposal submission process.\u00a0<\/p>\n Within Central Texas, Caldwell County is emerging as a data center hub, with multiple massive data centers in the works: Colorado-based Tract<\/a> is already building a 3,000-acre data center just south of Uhland. Connecticut-based Edged Energy<\/a> was approved<\/a> by the Caldwell County Commissioners Court on April 9 to build a 330-acre<\/a> campus in Maxwell, Texas.<\/p>\n Dallas-based Prime Data Centers<\/a> plans to build a 205-acre center in Lockhart, Texas, with a 384-megawatt capacity. And now, Caldwell County residents are waiting to see if PowerHouse is still on the table<\/a>. (As of publication, Edged Energy and Tract have not responded to interview or statement requests. PowerHouse declined an interview for this article.)<\/p>\n Moreover, the Tract \u201cmega campus\u201d being developed near Uhland is on track to be one of the biggest in the state, covering not hundreds but thousands of acres that were bought bit by<\/a> bit, with a city-scale electric capacity of 4,000 megawatts. That\u2019s enough to power about 800,000 homes, according<\/a> to ERCOT.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m not against businesses, corporations, something that\u2019s going to have a positive impact for our community,\u201d Wendy said. \u201cBut this isn\u2019t a positive impact.\u201d<\/p>\n On April 11, over 50 neighbors from across Caldwell County gathered at a public library in Lockhart, concerned about the data centers already being developed in their communities and hoping to learn more. Many felt betrayed by their local officials who approved the data center proposals.<\/p>\n \u201cI am very disappointed in our commission,\u201d one local resident said aloud. \u201cI can\u2019t understand why you take supposed economic need for an excuse to attack our water, our air, our electricity. I don\u2019t know about anybody else, but my natural gas has gone up twice.\u201d<\/p>\n Si Frede, an advocate with the Data Center Action Coalition, pointed out that data centers are often not transparent about their future usage, and often footed by tech companies whose profit model is based on personal data collection and surveillance. Data centers are also being disproportionately built<\/a> in the South and next to historically Black and brown neighborhoods.<\/p>\n \u201c[Data centers are] frequently referred to as \u2018mission critical infrastructure,\u2019 and I think it\u2019s important that we interrogate: Whose mission is it? What is it critical for?\u201d Frede continued.<\/p>\n One resident asked if data centers actually create any local jobs or not. DeeDee Belmares, a clean energy advocate at Public Citizen, replied that apart from initial construction jobs, skilled workers are often brought in for the tech roles, and the local community ultimately sees few permanent jobs. \u201cMost of those are \u2026 custodial, groundskeeping, or security jobs,\u201d Frede added.<\/p>\n Another resident expressed concern about Prime Data Centers\u2019 plan<\/a> to use the local Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative to power their Lockhart data center, worried their own utility bills would go up. Prime told the Chronicle that the choice was made to keep \u201cenergy dollars local.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe pay our full, fair share of energy costs. To avoid placing any incremental burden on the community grid, Prime will develop and fund its own supplemental power generation for any capacity needs beyond what the cooperative can readily supply over the next 24 months,\u201d the data center operator wrote in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n Garza, who voted in favor of Prime, told her neighbors that many local leaders aren\u2019t well-informed about the impacts of data centers when they vote on these proposals, and aren\u2019t aware of what other data centers are being proposed in other municipalities.<\/p>\n \u201cAt the time Tract was presented to Council, I was not aware of Prime. I was not aware of PowerHouse,\u201d Garza admitted to the room. \u201cThis is what we need more of. Because if I had this information last year, I would not have voted for Prime.\u201d<\/p>\n Eddie Rowe, a San Marcos resident, used to work at a large data center in Northern Virginia. Even though the walls were soundproofed, he could still hear the whir of the server farm through the walls into the office portion of the building.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd as soon as you open the door, it\u2019s very, very loud fans \u2013 a lot of cooling. There\u2019s endless long hallways, and it\u2019s all dark. And as you walk through, the motion sensor lights turn on just where you are,\u201d he recalled. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of energy-saving things about it.\u201d<\/p>\n When it comes to a data center\u2019s water use, which systems it uses for cooling and electricity generation matter, Rowe added.<\/p>\n Most data centers being built now, including those by Edged Energy<\/a> and Prime<\/a> in Texas, are using what is called a \u201cclosed-loop\u201d water system to cool their server racks: The water passes over the server racks and removes heat, and then cycles through a cooling process to remove the heat from the water again, ideally reusing much of the same water over and over. While the process often loses some amount of water to evaporation, some third-party cooling system companies, like Edged Energy\u2019s partner<\/a>, are touting \u201cwaterless,\u201d \u201cAI-ready\u201d solutions.<\/p>\n Prime told the Chronicle that after initially filling their closed-loop cooling system with an unstated amount, daily water consumption will be roughly 900 gallons per building.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the campus\u2019 four data centers, this is comparable to the annual consumption of nine average U.S. homes,\u201d Prime wrote. \u201cWe connect to the same municipal water system others in the area use, with no groundwater depletion and no specialized discharge.\u201d<\/p>\n Margaret Cook, a water expert at the Houston Advanced Research Center, told the Chronicle it is possible to build a data center that\u2019s \u201cnot very thirsty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey are improving these technologies, and one of the reasons that they\u2019re doing that is public concern,\u201d Cook continued. However, water usage can significantly vary between different \u201cclosed-loop\u201d data centers depending on what kind of cooling system they\u2019re using, she emphasized.<\/p>\n Dry coolers and air-cooled chillers, which use cold air instead of more water to remove heat from the closed loop, use little to no water, Cook said. If the campus has an external cooling tower (which evaporates heat out of the water) or a water-cooled chiller to remove heat from the closed loop, that would use much more water.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s part of why I get a little bit frustrated when they say, \u2018We\u2019re using closed loop.\u2019 Well yeah, that\u2019s better than completely just dousing your facility and letting it evaporate. But at the same time, there\u2019s still a water demand \u2026 depending on what your cooling technology is externally,\u201d Cook continued.<\/p>\n While dry cooling and AC-powered cooling uses less water, it still uses more electricity. More data center operators are building their own power plants on-site to supply enough power to the data center and avoid blackouts. Those have their own significant water bill.<\/p>\n Yet another issue is that water is still more attractive to operators than AC because it\u2019s cheaper. \u201cElectricity [is] still going to be more expensive per unit,\u201d Cook said. \u201cYou\u2019re going to try to conserve as much energy as possible and use more water.\u201d<\/p>\n And in a hot state like Texas, water is just a more efficient way to cool a server off than air. \u201cOn a hot summer day, you\u2019re going to cool off faster by jumping into a swimming pool,\u201d Cook pointed out.<\/p>\n As someone now working in tech here in Texas, Rowe knows data centers have the ability to be, to a point, more sustainable. And while some operators are being pushed by local communities in that direction, others are quietly sticking with the cheaper, water-thirsty route.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I\u2019m frustrated that the people who do have billions of dollars, like Meta, Amazon, Google, and BlackRock, to make sustainable data centers, they\u2019re pinching pennies,\u201d Rowe continued. \u201cIt\u2019s destroying environments that have been here for thousands of years.\u201d<\/p>\n The most recent Texas State Water Plan<\/a>, from 2022, projects a widening gap between how much water the state needs and how much it actually has. And that calculation doesn\u2019t even take existing or future data centers into account, Cook emphasized.<\/p>\n Without significant intervention by state legislators, municipalities, and local communities to force data center operators to be better stewards of local resources, the water deficit will only widen.<\/p>\n \u201cOur 2026 Regional Water Plans also don\u2019t include that information, and the 2027 [state] plan is based on that, so it won\u2019t either,\u201d she added. \u201cWe do make some estimates on population growth, but as far as [projecting] the water use for industry in general, they base that on historic water use.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the spring storms that have fallen over Central Texas this past month, the region is still a year\u2019s worth of rainfall<\/a> behind where we should be. As of October 2025, Barton Springs-Edwards Aquifer Conservation District has declared<\/a> its territory to be in Stage 3 Exceptional Drought. The portions of the Edwards and Trinity aquifers they oversee supply drinking water to nearly 100,000 residents in the Austin area.<\/p>\n While the state\u2019s hydrologists, the Lower Colorado River Authority, and the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance devise creative ways<\/a> to get Texas more water for the future \u2013 such as desalinating marine water and harvesting water<\/a> out of the atmosphere \u2013 data centers are an additional problem to solve.<\/p>\n Without state-level intervention, local groundwater conservation districts (GCDs), like the Edwards Aquifer Authority that Ruiz directs, don\u2019t have tools to prevent data centers from moving into their communities and obtaining groundwater pumping permits.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard from [GCD] folks that they feel a little like their hands are tied,\u201d Cook said. \u201cThey\u2019re bound to allow water users in their area, and \u2026 they can\u2019t necessarily prevent a data center from coming in, or prevent a municipality from providing water to a data center because of a lack of groundwater availability.\u201d<\/p>\n On April 9, the Texas Committee on State Affairs met<\/a> to consider the AI boom\u2019s impact on water supply and grid reliability \u2013 where the major data center tenants, according to Haynes Strader of Skybox Datacenters, are Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, and Meta.<\/p>\n Pablo Vegas, president and CEO of ERCOT, told legislators that they\u2019re receiving \u201cdozens and dozens\u201d of requests from \u201cnew projects\u201d to connect to the grid every month, with about 87% coming from data centers. Texas needs to establish a \u201chigh bar\u201d for data centers to plug into the state grid, Vegas stressed, proposing a system where data centers can essentially buy a spot in line to connect to the grid within the following few years.<\/p>\n Dan Diorio of the Data Center Coalition<\/a>, a group of major tech corporations, told legislators that the U.S. must remain a global leader in AI. \u201cTexas \u2026 [is] one of the strongest places in the world to do business. And data centers are playing a central role in supporting the Texas economy,\u201d Diorio said, claiming that data centers generate significant local revenue and rely on local skilled electricians, plumbers, and technicians to operate.<\/p>\n In July, the Texas Senate Committee on Finance will convene to reconsider the state tax breaks being granted to data center operators, with the money being lost through those subsidies projected to only pile higher<\/a> through 2030.<\/p>\n But at the local level, when data center operators come to Commissioners Court and City Council meetings with a proposal, Cook said local leaders and their constituents can ask them more questions and demand greater transparency. What is their basic plan for water use? What is their plan for drought? What would their peak water and wastewater demand be?<\/p>\n \u201cAre you doing any on-site reuse, or rainwater harvesting? Can you use an alternative water supply?\u201d Cook continued, emphasizing the need to ask the same questions of their accompanying power plant and infrastructure.\u00a0<\/p>\n What else could be done? Cook said one solution that has been proposed are voluntary Public Utility Commission surveys to regularly track data centers\u2019 resource use, but worries that only the \u201cgood\u201d operators would complete them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe good actors are likely going to be those lower water users who may want to brag about their systems,\u201d Cook said. \u201cI think we\u2019re less likely to get the folks that would be more important to plan for.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_DotDotDot.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Header-1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Clayton.jpg\")
Clayton Tucker, a Texas farmer, secretary of the Texas Farmers Union, and Democratic candidate for Texas Commissioner of Agriculture Credit: Courtesy of Clayton Tucker<\/p>\n![\"\u201cWe](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Quote-1.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_DotDotDot-2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"Small](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Header-2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Fernando.jpg\")
Fernando Tristan, a landowner and resident in Uhland, Texas Credit: Sammie Seamon<\/p>\n![\"\u201c[Data](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Quote-2.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_DotDotDot-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"What\u2019s](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Header-3.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_PrimeLockhart.jpg\")
Prime is currently developing a 205-acre data center campus in Lockhart, Texas Credit: Courtesy of Prime Data Centers<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_DotDotDot-4.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"State](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Header-4.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_DotDotDot-5.png\")
<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_Header-5.png\")
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/DataCenters_TEXT.png\")
<\/p>\n