East Texas Legacy Coalition

We’ve watched our water drop before.

For decades, the paper mill outside Lufkin was the biggest straw in Angelina County. The state measured our water dropping nearly 500 feet while it pumped, and coming back when it cut back. Now a data center wants to build on the same site. Here’s the history, straight from the state’s own reports.

Two wells that tell the story

The state has measured these two wells north of Lufkin since the 1930s and ’40s. Each bar shows how far down you had to go to reach water, the first time it was measured and the latest time.

Depth to water in two Angelina County wells State well 3735401: about 56 feet down in 1939, 290 feet down in 2024. State well 3735701: about 190 feet down in 1946, 377 feet down in 2026. Ground level 100 ft 200 ft 300 ft 400 ft 1939: 56 ft 2024: 290 ft 1946: 190 ft 2026: 377 ft Well 3735401 down 234 ft Well 3735701 down 188 ft

The light line is where the water sat the first time each well was measured. The dark line is where it sits now. The shaded gap between them is how far it has dropped.

Source: Texas Water Development Board groundwater database, state well numbers 3735401 (industrial well, 76 measurements) and 3735701 (public supply well, 47 measurements), Carrizo-Wilcox aquifer. The 1939 and 1946 depths are the latest depth minus the total drop, rounded.

What the state wrote down

  1. 1940Southland Paper Mills opens east of Lufkin. State water-level measurements start in the late 1930s, the same time Lufkin started drawing its city water from the Carrizo and the mill started running its own Carrizo wells. KTRE (opening year); TWDB Report 110, p. 23.
  2. 1968The mill is the biggest water user around. In Angelina County, industry pumps 15.6 million gallons a day. Every city and water system in the county combined pumps 5. The state writes: “The largest single user in the area is Southland Paper Mills.” TWDB Report 110, pp. 22–23.
  3. 1970The state reports that pumping has pulled water levels down nearly 500 feet near the center of pumping. At the mill’s old well field, the water now sits more than 200 feet below sea level. And it warns that the Carrizo in Angelina and Nacogdoches counties can only give about 32 million gallons a day “without causing the failure of some of the present well fields and drying up portions of the aquifer.” Pumping in the two counties is already at 26.7. That leaves room for about 5 million more. TWDB Report 110, abstract (p. 1) and p. 23.
  4. Late 1970s and 1988The paper industry northeast of Lufkin cuts back its groundwater pumping and switches partly to lake water from Lake Kurth and Striker Creek. The state records that the declines slow, and in some wells the water rises. TWDB Report 327 (Feb. 1991), pp. 23 and 26.
  5. 1991The state names the area between Lufkin and Nacogdoches as one of the two worst drawdown areas in East Texas, with declines of “as much as 500 feet since before World War II.” It points to industrial pumping, “especially that for the paper mills northeast of Lufkin.” TWDB Report 327, abstract and p. 23.
  6. 2007The mill shuts down. KTRE.
  7. 2009The City of Lufkin agrees to buy the mill’s water system, including its 13 water wells. City officials say it would let Lufkin pump about five times what it could before. KTRE (13 wells); Lufkin Daily News.
  8. 2026Amp Z plans an AI data center on the old mill site, built out to 2,100 megawatts. Its water needs are listed as “TBD.” Seven big projects in Angelina County.

“But some wells are rising.”

That’s true, and the state explained why in 1991. Picture a bathtub with straws in it. Where a big straw drinks hard, the water around it dips into a funnel. Pull the straw back, and the water slowly fills back in.

Of the 19 wells the state still measures in this county, 6 have dropped and 13 have risen since they were first measured. But most of the rising wells were first measured between the 1950s and 1990s, after the big pumping had already pulled the water down. Rising from the bottom of the funnel doesn’t put the water back where it was in 1939. And three of them only go back to 2021.

Sources: TWDB Report 327, p. 23; current well counts from Angelina County Watch, which updates from the state database every night.

What it means now

We already ran this experiment once. The biggest straw drank, the water dropped, and it took decades to start coming back.Our reading of TWDB Reports 110 and 327.

Report 110 warned in 1970 that the Carrizo was close to its safe limit around Lufkin. A new big user on the same site deserves a real water number before anybody signs a contract, not “TBD.”

What we don’t know yet

What you can do

Share this with somebody who says the water will be fine. Then ask the Lufkin City Council one question at the next meeting: how many gallons a day will the data center use, in writing? Here’s how to sign up to speak.