Texas moves to enforce a water-reporting law most data centres have been skipping

About 30 percent of surveyed facilities returned legally required water-use reports last year, and the state now says failing to file is punishable as a crime.

16 September 2026 · 5 min read · L1 Power and land · The Pulse, 14 September 2026

What happened

On 14 September Texas Governor Greg Abbott directed the Texas Water Development Board to begin enforcing a water-use reporting requirement against large water users including AI data centres. The state's own release says the Texas Water Code requires recipients of a survey to complete and return it, that a data centre which fails to do so commits an offence punishable as a crime, that the board must refer non-compliant facilities to the appropriate county or district attorney, and that a facility which misses the deadline becomes ineligible for state environmental permits, amendments or renewals. The board cannot prosecute anyone itself, so it must report its enforcement progress to the governor's office by 14 October 2026.

Why it matters

According to Texas Tribune reporting, compliance has been low for years: 32 percent of the 22 data centres surveyed responded in 2023, 28 percent of 67 in 2024, and roughly 30 percent of 329 in 2025. The same reporting gives one named example of the scale involved, a Bitdeer facility in Rockdale that used more than 300 million gallons of water in a year, roughly as much as a Texas town of about 3,500 people. By our count this is the governor's third directive on AI data centres since August, after the 3 August order pausing new large-load grid connections and an 18 August update on companies agreeing to conditions.

What would change it, and when

Enforcement depends on what the water board does by the 14 October deadline and on how many cases local prosecutors take up, since the board has no prosecution power of its own. If referrals and permit denials follow, the order has teeth. If it mostly produces more completed paperwork, the practical effect will be smaller than the language suggests.

What we do not know

The governor's office does not name which data centres it considers non-compliant, so the number of facilities actually affected cannot be known from the directive. It is also unclear how many of the low response rates in the Texas Tribune's figures belong to AI data centres specifically rather than the other large water users the same law covers.

What this changes for you

If you live near a Texas data centre, this raises the odds that its water use is tracked and made public rather than going unreported, and that the state has real numbers when it plans local water supply. For everyone else nothing changes today; this is a state enforcement directive, not a rule that touches AI prices or availability.

Sources

Everything above is written from these. Each line says what that document proves.

1. gov.texas.gov: The governor's own release, 14 September: the directive, the criminal offence and prosecutor referral language, the permit ineligibility, and the 14 October reporting deadline.
2. tylerpaper.com: Texas Tribune reporting, republished with byline credit: the year by year survey response rates, the named Bitdeer facility's water use, and that the board has no prosecution power. None of this appears in the governor's release.
3. abc13.com: Independent local journalism: dates for the two earlier Abbott directives, and on the record community reaction absent from the governor's release.

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