Leave the good water for the people.
We’re not asking anybody to shut the lights off. We’re asking that the water we drink go to people, and that servers get cooled with other water. Lufkin already owns some. It bought it for industry in 2009.
Not all water has to be drinking water
A cooling tower doesn’t need water clean enough to drink. Here are the kinds of water around Lufkin, and what each one is good for.
- The Carrizo-WilcoxLufkin’s drinking water comes from this aquifer. It refills slowly, and the state measured it dropping nearly 500 feet while the paper mill pumped. The history.
- River and lake water the City already ownsRights to 19,100 acre-feet a year from the Angelina River, stored in Lake Kurth. That’s about 17 million gallons a day. The City can also take up to 28,000 acre-feet a year from Sam Rayburn.
- Reused waterTreated wastewater, cleaned again for cooling. Other data centers already run on it (more below).
The City bought it for industry
In 2009 the City agreed to pay $15 million for the old paper mill’s water system: 13 wells, Lake Kurth, and the Angelina River rights. A council member said at the time that the City would be able to sell treated and untreated water to business and industry.
This year, former Mayor Jack Gorden told the Lufkin Daily News: “This is the reason that water was bought for.”
For scale: City Manager Kevin Gee has said Lufkin uses about 8 million gallons a day in all. The river right alone is about twice that.
And the City already plans to use more lake water. The 2026 East Texas Regional Water Plan lists a City project to pipe its Sam Rayburn water to Lake Kurth, about $136.5 million, around 2040.
Sources: KTRE, Feb. 2009; Lufkin Daily News, “As AI data centers eye Lufkin”; TWDB, Lake Kurth (built under a 1958 permit to Southland Paper Mills, now owned by the City).Other data centers already do this
- San Antonio, Texas. Microsoft reports that 79% of the water at its San Antonio site is recycled, reused or non-potable. Microsoft, June 2026
- Douglas County, Georgia. Google’s data center switched from drinking water to recycled water for cooling in 2008. Silicon UK
The state’s own water plan agrees
The East Texas Regional Water Plan says every water user in Angelina County depends on groundwater, but “both the Yegua and Carrizo-Wilcox aquifers have limited capacity for expanded development.” It says raw water from Lake Kurth is already available for industry, and it plans for new industry to buy water from the City, with Sam Rayburn as the long-term supply.
Source: 2021 East Texas Regional Water Plan, Chapter 5B, Angelina County. The 2026 plan, approved by the state in January 2026, keeps the same strategy.“Why not use the salty water underground?”
We looked. Texas has mapped 31 zones of brackish (salty) groundwater set aside for heavy use. None has been added since 2019, and none is in Deep East Texas. The state is still studying the Yegua-Jackson aquifer, which runs under our part of the state.
And some of the “other layers” aren’t junk water. The state found fresh water in the Yegua across Angelina County, down to a line between Huntington and Diboll, and the City of Diboll pumps from it. [Our reading] South of that line the Yegua is likely saltier, but nobody has studied it as a water supply. Salty groundwater isn’t a ready option here today. The water the City already owns is.
Sources: TWDB, The Status of Brackish Aquifer Studies in Texas, Dec. 1, 2025; TWDB zone designations (2016: Carrizo-Wilcox south of the Colorado River, Gulf Coast, Rustler; 2019: Blossom, Nacatoch, Northern Trinity); TWDB Report 110 (1970), Yegua Formation section (fresh-water area; Diboll’s pumping).Who can make it happen
- Lufkin City CouncilThe Lufkin Daily News reported that a big industrial user would likely need a contract with the City to get water. The contract can say which water.
- Pineywoods Groundwater Conservation DistrictTexas law lets a district set different rules for each aquifer, or each layer of one. It could hold the Carrizo-Wilcox to tighter limits.
- The Texas LegislatureLawmakers have said groundwater will be a major focus when they meet in January 2027.
What we don’t know yet
- Whether the City’s Angelina River right is still in good standing, and how much river and lake water it uses today. We’ve asked for the records.
- Whether any water deal under discussion says which water a data center would get.
What you can do
Ask the Lufkin City Council one question, out loud or by email:
Here’s how to sign up to speak. Then share this page with somebody who thinks it’s data centers or water, one or the other.