Finding Truth: Who Owns the Water Under Your Feet?

Before the coffee gets cold, remember that the most important resource in Texas is the one almost no campaign talks about accurately, because the loudest water arguments are rarely about the biggest water uses.

Day 10 of our fifteen-day series, and we're back in infrastructure territory after the grid. Water and power are linked: power plants, data centers, and farms all draw on the same limited supply, and a hotter, bigger Texas is asking more of it every year.

This is also the topic where I've found the widest gap between what gets talked about and what the numbers show. So pour a cup, and let's look at the numbers first.

Where the Water Actually Goes

Using the Texas Water Development Board's planning figures (as summarized in secondary reporting, so treat the percentages as close approximations), Texas uses roughly 17 million acre-feet of water a year:

• Irrigation (agriculture): about 8.4 million acre-feet, roughly 48%

• Municipal (homes, businesses, city services): about 6.0 million, roughly 34%

• Manufacturing: about 1.6 million, roughly 9%

• Steam-electric power: about 0.7 million, roughly 4%

• Mining, including oil and gas: about 0.4 million, roughly 2%

• Livestock: about 0.3 million, roughly 2%

Three uses account for about 91% of the total: farms, cities, and industry. And the number that matters most for the future differs from the number that matters today. Municipal demand is projected to climb as the state's population grows 53% between 2030 and 2080, while existing supplies are expected to shrink about 10% from aquifer depletion.

Where the Rhetoric and the Numbers Part Ways

I want to be careful here. I found no poll measuring what Texans believe the biggest water user is, so I can't tell you what the public thinks. What I can show you is where the conversation puts its attention, and it doesn't line up with the list above.

Data centers. They draw the most campaign attention right now, and they use less than 1% of Texas water today. That doesn't make the concern misplaced. The University of Texas projects 3% to 9% of the state's total by 2040, and a separate analysis projects up to 2.7% by 2030. There's also a real story in the missing data: only 28% of data centers answered a state water survey over the past three years. The honest version is "small today, potentially large tomorrow, and nobody can say for sure because most won't report." The louder version, that data centers are draining Texas, doesn't match the current numbers.

Agriculture. It's the largest user at roughly half of everything, and I found no candidate proposing anything about it. The reason is likely political, not scientific: farmers and ranchers are a powerful constituency, and telling them to use less is a hard sell.

Lawns. A study of 259 Texas cities found about 31% of residential water use happens outdoors, and in one East Texas town it was 64%, with nearly every home over-watering. That's a big slice of home use and a decision households control. Hardly anyone campaigns on it.

"Texas is running out of water." It's regional, not statewide, and both the alarm and the dismissal oversimplify. When media reports claimed Corpus Christi would run out of water next year, the city issued a statement correcting the record, pointing to nearly $1 billion in active water projects. At the same time, its projected water emergency is real and has only been pushed back to December 2026.

"Desalination will save us." The state's planning figures project about 157,000 acre-feet a year from seawater desalination and 192,000 from brackish groundwater by 2070. Together that's roughly 349,000 acre-feet, against a projected shortfall of about 7.7 million acre-feet a year. By my arithmetic, that's about 4.5% of the gap. Desalination is a real tool for coastal cities, but it is not the main answer.

"A billion dollars a year for water." Voters approved Proposition 4 in November 2025, directing up to $1 billion a year from state sales tax revenue into the Texas Water Fund from 2027 to 2047. The wording matters: it's a ceiling, it depends on the Legislature appropriating it and on sales tax revenue clearing a threshold, and one source suggests funds may not be available until state fiscal year 2029. Over 20 years it could reach $20 billion, against infrastructure needs estimated above $150 billion and a state water plan of over 10,000 projects costing about $174 billion. That's roughly an eighth of the need.

None of these claims are invented facts. Attention follows what is new, visible, or easy to blame, and the largest uses are old, quiet, and politically uncomfortable.

The Planning Problem Nobody Is Campaigning On

Here's the finding I think matters most, and I couldn't find any candidate addressing it. A Texas 2036 analysis of the Coastal Bend water crisis found that in 25 years of regional water plans, none projected a shortage for Corpus Christi or its neighboring cities. The plans relied on outdated drought assumptions, and of the many strategies they proposed, few were implemented before the crisis arrived.

That is a drought mitigation story at its core: the state's forecasting told a region it was fine until it wasn't. Every promise to build a plant, drill a well, or limit a data center depends on knowing when and where the shortage will hit, and that knowledge has been unreliable. Asking a candidate "how will you fix how Texas forecasts drought?" would be a better question than most of what gets asked.

Strategies Aimed at the Top Three

Irrigation. TWDB has run an Agricultural Water Conservation Grants program since 1985. A recent round offered up to $1.5 million, including $300,000 to the Edwards Aquifer Authority's irrigation efficiency program. Recommended practices include irrigation scheduling, audits, soil moisture monitoring, and better irrigation technology. The honest limit: those grant dollars are small next to a sector using over 8 million acre-feet, and state assessments flag the economics of farm conservation as a real obstacle.

Cities. The best-documented success is San Antonio, which cut daily use from 225 gallons per person in 1982 to under 140 today, despite 80% population growth. Its tools were replacing over 250,000 older toilets, rebates, free leak repairs for low-income households, native-plant promotion, tiered rates that charge heavy users more, and door-to-door outreach. The 2025 Legislature added a requirement that large utilities audit their water loss and protected homeowners from penalties for brown lawns during restrictions. Much of this is a local government matter, so city councils and utility boards often matter most here.

Industry. Tools include treated wastewater for cooling and process use, which TCEQ already authorizes, and drought surcharges like Corpus Christi's, which raises about $6 million a year toward new supply. In the Permian, about 85% of the 22 million barrels a day of produced water is disposed of by injection, while 50% to 60% is reused for hydraulic fracturing. Produced water is no silver bullet: it's salty, expensive to treat, and one national study found irrigation demand exceeds the available volume about five times over.

Data Centers, Cooling, and the Seawater Question

Two strategies get conflated, so here's the difference. Desalination removes salt to make fresh water. It's expensive, with TWDB cost ranges of $357 to $782 per acre-foot for brackish groundwater and $800 to $1,400 for seawater, and it uses substantial energy and produces concentrated brine. Texas has 53 municipal desalination plants but no municipal seawater plant yet.

Direct seawater cooling uses seawater as the coolant itself, needing no desalination and consuming no fresh water. It only works for coastal facilities. Federal rules under Section 316(b) of the Clean Water Act, implemented in Texas by TCEQ, regulate cooling water intakes of two million gallons a day or more at power plants, refineries, and similar facilities, because intakes can harm fish and shellfish. The rules don't require closed-loop cooling everywhere, but they shape what's permittable. For a coastal facility, seawater cooling may beat desalinating water just to cool equipment, but it's a siting strategy, not a statewide fix, and I couldn't find Texas-specific cost data.

For inland data centers, the options are reclaimed wastewater, produced water in West Texas, or cooling designs that use less water and more electricity, which loops back to Day 9's grid story. Governor Abbott directed TWDB last month to penalize data centers that fail to report water use, with an update due October 14, and the Public Utility Commission is requiring data centers and crypto miners to report water and cooling technology.

The Rio Grande and the 1944 Treaty

Under the 1944 treaty, Mexico must deliver 1.75 million acre-feet to the U.S. every five years, in exchange for water the U.S. provides from the Colorado River. Persistent shortfalls have hurt Rio Grande Valley farmers. In December 2025 the two countries reached an understanding under which Mexico would release 202,000 acre-feet starting that month, with a longer-term plan to follow, and U.S. officials warned of possible tariffs if obligations weren't met. I couldn't confirm what has happened since January 2026. This is a federal and diplomatic matter, not a state one, though it is routinely campaigned on as if a governor could fix it.

A Live Case: Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi shows every theme in this post at once. The City Council rejected a roughly $1.2 billion desalination plant, and the idea is back at about $979 million for up to 30 million gallons a day by 2029. Reporting says the city could owe the state $235 million tied to earlier funding if the project dies. The state's side of the ledger, per local reporting, includes temporary water permits, changes to drought plan thresholds, $30 million for groundwater wells, $16 million for pipeline upgrades, and $757 million toward a marine desalination plant.

Governor Abbott threatened state intervention over the delays. Gina Hinojosa's campaign says industry consumes two-thirds of the city's water without paying its fair share, and that the intervention threat protects Abbott's donors. I could not verify either the two-thirds figure or the motive claim, so treat both as campaign claims. The city says mandatory conservation applies to all customers, with industrial users paying a drought surcharge. Some council members argue desalination is a long-term fix, not an emergency one. I could not verify what authority the state actually has to compel a city to build a plant, so the intervention threat is best read as a political signal until its legal basis is clear.

What the Candidates Have Actually Proposed

I found no written drought mitigation plan from any of the six statewide candidates. What exists is a mix of actions, pledges, and statements, and almost all of it concerns Corpus Christi or data centers.

Governor (Abbott vs. Hinojosa). Abbott has renewed a drought disaster proclamation (first issued in July 2022, most recently amended in June 2026), pushed grant money, and ordered data center reporting enforcement. Hinojosa has called for industry to pay a fair share for new supply and local leadership on water. Last week in Longview she said she would call a special session to address data center water use and sign a bill creating a groundwater conservation district in Northeast Texas. Two authority checks on that: only a Texas governor can call a special session and set its agenda, but the Legislature still has to pass whatever is proposed. And the district itself is something 15 East Texas counties are working to form, with legislative approval expected in 2027, so her signature would be the last step in a process that doesn't start with her.

Lieutenant Governor (Patrick vs. Goodwin). Dan Patrick visited Corpus Christi pushing desalination, saying the state would "send hundreds of millions" and criticizing local leaders for rejecting proposals. Vikki Goodwin supports a temporary moratorium on new data centers until Texas sets standards protecting the grid, water supply, and utility costs. Patrick's position is a supply strategy; Goodwin's is a demand-side pause. Both matter because the Lieutenant Governor controls the Senate calendar.

U.S. Senate (Paxton vs. Talarico). Both agree data centers should pay their own infrastructure costs. Beyond that, they diverge:

• Ken Paxton has a four-point data center plan emphasizing federal regulation, opposing Chinese technology, AI child-safety accountability, and state-controlled construction limits. As Attorney General, he announced an investigation into data centers not complying with state water use surveys. Talarico calls this hypocrisy, since Paxton previously supported data center incentives and, Talarico says, accepts data center donations. I haven't verified the donation claim.

• James Talarico's plan includes minimum federal environmental and grid guidelines, repealing tax incentives for large tech companies, making data centers pay for their own infrastructure, enforcing closed-loop water systems, and giving local communities approval authority. Closed-loop cooling typically cuts water use but can raise electricity demand, the same tradeoff from Day 9.

• A senator can vote on federal data center rules and farm conservation funding, but land use has traditionally been a state and local matter, so a Senate role in local approval is limited. I haven't verified what a federal framework could require.

One more note: reporting describes public sentiment in Texas as generally opposed to new data center construction, and one report cites only 20% support. I couldn't trace that to a specific poll, so I'd treat it as directional, not as a verified number.

Who Actually Has Authority Here

Governor: appoints TWDB and TCEQ members, directs agencies, calls special sessions, and signs or vetoes water legislation. Cannot rewrite groundwater law alone.

Legislature and Lieutenant Governor: writes groundwater law, appropriates the Water Fund, creates new groundwater districts, and decides whether data centers face non-potable or closed-loop requirements. Advocates have already aimed recommendations at the 2027 session.

Local groundwater districts, river authorities, and cities: the least visible offices on your ballot, and the ones with the most direct control over pumping, rates, and conservation programs.

U.S. Senate: real but indirect leverage through federal water funding, farm conservation programs, federal drought coordination (currently fragmented across agencies, per a Congressional Research Service report), and the treaty relationship.

A Student of Truth's Approach

• Does a water claim describe one of the big three uses, or a smaller or newer one that happens to be getting more airtime?

• Is the figure a current share, a projection, or a ceiling, like "up to $1 billion a year" or "could reach 9% by 2040"?

• Does the candidate's office actually control the lever being promised, or does it need the Legislature, a local district, or Congress to finish the job?

• Is the proposal about preparing for drought, or just about supplying water once the crisis arrives?

• When someone says "we're running out," do they mean statewide, regional, or one city?

A Call to Action

This week, before the coffee gets cold, find out which groundwater conservation district or water utility serves your address, and read its drought contingency plan. Then ask your candidates one question that nobody seems to be asking: how will you make sure the state's drought forecasts are right before the next shortage?

Tomorrow, Day 11, we move from infrastructure to one of the most emotionally charged topics on the ballot: abortion law, what it says, and what doctors think it says.

A Student of Truth Is Now Available

A Student of Truth: Think Clearly in a World of Misinformation, Outrage, and AI is now live on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback. If noticing the gap between what's loud and what's large is the kind of thinking you value, I'd be grateful if you picked up a copy and left an honest review once you've finished it.

I'm also deep into writing the next book in the series, The Ledger and the Lie: Government, Economics, and the Stories We're Sold, targeted for completion by year end. Today's post, where the quietest water users are the biggest ones and 25 years of official plans missed a crisis that arrived anyway, is exactly the kind of story-versus-ledger gap that book is built to examine.

As always, I'd love to hear from you. Do you know which district or utility controls your water, and has your community faced restrictions or shortages? Send your thoughts to hello@cletustaylor.com, or leave a comment wherever you're reading this.

Author note: Cletus Taylor writes the Finding Truth series to encourage thoughtful citizenship, moral courage, and the lifelong work of seeking truth with humility, especially when the biggest number in the room is the one nobody is talking about.

Cletus Taylor, keeping the coffee hot and the water ledger honest for tomorrow's conversation.