Sinton, with 5,500 residents about half an hour north, is fighting those permits in court, citing concerns for its own water supply. But leaders in Corpus Christi, which supplies water to half a million people, now suggest an ulterior motive: Sinton wants a thirsty, new complex of data centers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Officials and executives in Corpus Christi point to recent land deals, well permits and a rezoning ordinance as evidence for the data center plans. Officials in Sinton neither confirm nor deny Corpus Christi\u2019s supposition.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is rumors,\u201d said John Hobson, Sinton\u2019s city manager, declining to say whether or not it is true.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Everyone involved in the deal probably signed non-disclosure agreements, said Greg Ellis, an attorney for the San Patricio Groundwater Conservation District, which is based in Sinton and issued the drilling permits in dispute.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeems like it\u2019s gotten out anyway,\u201d he said. \u201cI find the rumor very believable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hundreds of data centers are planned in Texas<\/a>, far more than any other state, according to data from Aterio<\/a>. These high-powered server farms<\/a> for artificial intelligence and internet services have provoked furious backlash from communities across the state, fueled in part by concerns over their water consumption<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Many parts of Texas are staring down water supply deficits, but none as pressing as in Corpus Christi, a 500,000-person metro area on the South Texas coast, where reservoirs could dry up<\/a> next year, unless drought abates. Recent projections suggest<\/a> the region\u2019s five-year drought<\/a> could be nearing an end, thanks to a powerful El Ni\u00f1o that could bring heavy rains from the Pacific.\u00a0<\/p>\n In February, as the region\u2019s main reservoirs dropped below 10 percent full, Sinton challenged permits for Corpus Christi\u2019s emergency Evangeline groundwater project and sent the region on a path towards confrontation.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n At a May 5 Corpus Christi City Council meeting, Council Member Eric Cantu said he heard Sinton challenged Corpus Christi\u2019s permits because the town \u201cis going to do a data center.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the whole reason,\u201d Cantu said.\u00a0<\/p>\n On the same day, local construction executive and Corpus Christi planning commission member Michael Miller posted on Facebook<\/a>: \u201cThere is significant evidence that this is true,\u201d describing a series of recent land deals and rezoning in Sinton.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe should all be focused on solving this water crisis before we entertain adding any large volume users,\u201d Miller wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n A week later, Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni told a city council meeting, \u201cWe do know there\u2019s one, maybe a second data center going to Sinton.\u201d<\/p>\n After weeks of swirling hearsay, Sinton has not issued an official statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTry asking the city,\u201d said a receptionist at the chamber of commerce.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re not working on that project,\u201d said a spokesperson for the local economic development corporation.<\/p>\n \u201cI have heard rumors,\u201d said Commissioner Thomas Yardley of San Patricio County, which is seated in Sinton. \u201cI have not heard anything official.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n John Michael, vice president of the engineering firm Hanson Professional Services and a former Sinton city engineer, also believes the data center plans are real. He heard from \u201cvery credible sources\u201d that the project was \u201cworth several billion dollars\u201d and could require more than three million gallons per day of water.\u00a0<\/p>\n Sinton relies on local groundwater and currently uses less than one million gallons per day, Michael said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s hold all of our regional system hostage while they wait for their data center,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael, who built Sinton\u2019s current water supply in the 1980s, pointed to an April 21 ordinance<\/a> by the Sinton City Council that rezoned 1,000 acres of agricultural land\u2014the size of 756 standard American football fields\u2014to industrial.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNo city would ever do that unless somebody needed them to,\u201d Michael said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Last year, regional power provider AEP acquired a 12-acre adjacent parcel<\/a> and announced plans to build a substation, and the San Patricio County Groundwater Conservation District issued a drilling permit<\/a> to the City of Sinton within the newly rezoned tract. (The groundwater district\u2019s general manager, Lonnie Stewart, said he hadn\u2019t heard about any data center.)\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cApparently the city plans to sell groundwater to the data center, so they don\u2019t want the City of Corpus Christi to get the permits they need,\u201d said James Dodson, a former director of the Corpus Christi water department and a retired consultant who worked on Corpus Christi\u2019s groundwater project near Sinton.<\/p>\n Sinton Stymies Emergency Project<\/p>\n Plans for the Evangeline groundwater project have appeared in regional planning documents for decades. They include 22 proposed wells that would pump water from the Evangeline Aquifer into a nearby pipeline, which Corpus Christi currently uses to draw water from Lake Texana, 100 miles away.<\/p>\n Corpus Christi declined to pursue the Evangeline project for years while it focused on developing a seawater desalination plant. Last fall, as drought deepened and desalination plans floundered, Corpus Christi turned back to the Evangeline for an emergency solution.\u00a0<\/p>\n City leaders said the project could produce 24 million gallons per day by 2027. Corpus Christi provides up to 120 million gallons per day to cities and industries in seven counties, including San Patricio County.\u00a0<\/p>\n Across Texas, large-scale groundwater import ventures like the Evangeline project are the primary tactic for growing cities seeking to expand water supplies. Such plans almost always spark legal conflicts<\/a> between the small, local users who depend on their groundwater, and the big-city interests that want to pump it away.<\/p>\n Officials in Corpus Christi say they conducted prior negotiations with Sinton and didn\u2019t expect legal challenges when they applied for drilling permits early this year, anxious to fend off an imminent water crisis. So Corpus Christi began to build the project anyway. City Manager Zanoni called it<\/a> a \u201ccalculated risk.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n There was no time to wait, he said. So the city approved big expenditures and began to truck in pipeline from South Carolina, hopeful that a state administrative law judge would reject Sinton\u2019s petition and greenlight the Evangeline project permits.<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n But on Friday, Judge Alicia York ruled that Sinton\u2019s challenge could proceed and sent the matter into a litigation process that could last years.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSinton stopped negotiating with us on our good-neighbor agreements and has been fighting against our regional water supply project,\u201d Zanoni said in an interview. \u201cTheir need for water for a large water user like a data center might best explain their actions.\u201d<\/p>\n Data Center Water Demand Surges Statewide\u00a0<\/p>\n The rapid buildout of data centers across Texas is poised to transform statewide water demands in coming years, according to a report released this month by the Bureau of Economic Geology at the University of Texas, \u201cWater use requirements for data centers in Texas<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhile energy consumption has dominated the recent discourses on data centers, water requirements\u2014both direct and indirect\u2014are now recognized as equally critical,\u201d it said. \u201cParticularly in the context of regional water scarcity.\u201d<\/p>\n Researchers estimated statewide data center water demand in Texas could grow from 120 million gallons a day in 2025 to 640 million gallons a day by 2030. Withdrawals could exceed those of mining and livestock, and likely exceed those associated with steam-electric generation.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThis signals a potential shift in the composition of Texas\u2019s water demand portfolio,\u201d the report said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Large data centers typically use water for cooling their networked computers that run continuously, said Bill Radford, chief technical officer for Duos Edge AI, at a ribbon cutting in downtown Corpus Christi last week. He said the new Duos facility, with a relatively small footprint, doesn\u2019t consume any water because it uses high-powered air conditioning units.\u00a0<\/p>\n More expansive complexes, Radford said, trickle water through their hardware to remove heat and prevent meltdowns.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWater goes in, steam comes out,\u201d he said. \u201cIt is something that data centers are moving away from, because they understand it. But today it\u2019s still there.\u201d<\/p>\n Radford has also heard rumors of the complex planned in Sinton. However, he cautioned, it might never get built. Half of all proposed data centers in Texas never break ground, he said, typically due to community opposition or limits on resources like power and water.\u00a0<\/p>\n Neena Satija of the Texas Newsroom contributed to this report.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don\u2019t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places? <\/p>\n Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.<\/p>\n Thank you,<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t \t\t\t\t\tContributor<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4O6A0415.jpg\"\/)
![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/4O6A0415.jpg\")
John Michael points to Sinton on a map at the Hanson Professional Services office in Corpus Christi on Monday. Credit: Dylan Baddour\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6052-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
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Pipeline material began arriving in early March to the site of Corpus Christi\u2019s Evangeline groundwater project on the hopes that a judge would dismiss Sinton\u2019s challenge and clear the way for pumping to begin. Credit: Courtesy of Peter Zanoni\/City of Corpus Christi<\/p>\n![\"Generators](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_3452-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
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Generators at a Duos Edge AI data center in downtown Corpus Christi. Credit: Emily Salazar\/KEDT <\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\tEmily Salazar\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Dylan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_0748-2-300x300.jpg\"\/)
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