Data centers, crypto mines and power plants are lining up over the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer, the water Deep East Texas drinks. We’re a grassroots coalition out of Angelina County. We ask the questions in writing, file the records requests, and put every answer where y’all can see it.
Most of us picture the water under the house as ours alone. It isn’t. Your well, your neighbor’s well and the City of Lufkin’s wells are all straws in the same glass: the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer. Whatever a big straw takes, it takes from everybody.
Rain soaks in where the sand comes up to the surface, then creeps downhill underground, about five to eight feet a year in one state-cited study. Some of this water fell as rain more than 25,000 years ago. We’ve watched it drop before. See what one big straw would do now.
Source: TWDB Report 372 (2009), p. 16, citing Pearson and White (1967). Those ages were measured in the Carrizo Sand of South Texas.The City drinks from the Carrizo-Wilcox for a reason. Water from the Yegua layer near Lufkin is too mineral-heavy for city use unless it’s diluted and treated.
Source: USGS Water-Supply Paper 849-A, Geology and Ground-Water Resources of the Lufkin Area.A data center at the old Southland mill, another on Ben Dunn Road, and a power company that asked for 1.5 billion gallons a year. See the three projects.
The Pineywoods Groundwater Conservation District permits new wells. The Lufkin City Council decides whether to sell City water. Those are the two doors. Here’s how to knock.
That was said to the Lufkin Planning and Zoning Commission on Feb. 9, 2026. The official minutes call it “concerns.” We got the City’s own recording through a public records request. Listen for yourself.
Source: City of Lufkin meeting recordings and minutes, released to ETLC under request CRR-2026-348.Every figure here comes from a public record or a published report, and the source sits right under it. If we can’t prove it, it isn’t on this page.
About 1,041 acres optioned for an AI data center campus the developer plans to grow to 2.1 gigawatts.
The City’s water estimate: about 500 gallons a day, roughly what three houses use.
We have follow-up questions.
Sources: Data Center Dynamics, Feb. 5, 2026; City of Lufkin Data Center FAQ.About 40 acres. County Judge Keith Wright says the company has secured power and water agreements and started clearing land. Local officials say it plans to use the wells already on the property, with power from Oncor.
Old wells, new thirst.
Sources: Data Center Dynamics, citing KLTV; Baxtel data center listing.Approved for 80 million gallons a year in 2024–25 and never drilled. In March 2026 it asked for 1.5 billion gallons a year. That request has been on hold since July.
That’s not a rounding error. That’s a lake.
Source: Pineywoods general manager Wil Blough, email to ETLC, Sept. 22, 2026.See all seven big projects lined up for Angelina County, in plain words with sources.
We’re not asking anybody to shut the lights off. We’re asking that drinking-quality water go to people, and that servers get cooled with lower-grade or reused water. That idea has a name, fit-for-purpose water, and Texas law already has the tools.
The groundwater district can do it. Texas law lets a district adopt different rules for each aquifer, or even each layer of one, inside its boundaries. Pineywoods could hold the Carrizo-Wilcox to tighter limits than the saltier layers.
The state has already mapped saltier water for heavy use. Since 2015 the Water Development Board has designated 31 brackish groundwater production zones. None has been added since 2019, and none is in Deep East Texas, so for now the better option is water the City already owns.
The City can put it in the contract. The City owns the wells it would sell from. Any water deal can require a data center to cool with reused or lower-grade water. The City already owns river and lake water it bought for industry.
Sources: Texas Water Code §36.116(d); House Bill 30 (2015) and TWDB brackish groundwater production zone designations.This is your home. You get a say. See who decides what, when they meet, and how to speak up →
ERCOT keeps a list of every power project asking to plug into the Texas grid. Here’s what that list showed for the 15 East Texas counties we track.
ETLC was one voice among a lot of folks. Here’s what changed while we were making noise.
These tools are built by Grail Systems and open to everybody. No login, no paywall, no spin.
Seventh-generation Texan. Mother of three. Co-owner of Zion Auto Glass in Lufkin. Self-taught systems architect who built every tool on this site because nobody else was going to.
She founded the coalition, testified in Austin in May 2026, and hasn’t stopped filing paperwork since. Somebody in city government has her email address memorized by now.
This isn’t a big-money operation. It’s a mom from Angelina County with a laptop, a stack of records requests, and a whole lot of neighbors who are tired of finding out last. Here’s how y’all can stand with her.
The ETLC Facebook group is where we share sightings, meeting dates and every record that comes back. It’s free, and it’s where the organizing happens.
Join the groupRecords aren’t free. The City of Lufkin charged us a $54 deposit for one set. Angelina County charged $45. Every request costs money, gas and time off work, and we pay it so the answers end up public.
Give another amountMost folks around here still haven’t heard a word about any of this. Send this page to one person who drinks well water. That’s it. That’s the ask.
Gifts go straight to the East Texas Legacy Coalition’s Cash App and pay for records fees and keeping these sites running. They aren’t tax-deductible. Questions? contact@grailsystems.io
New construction, a lease offer, a well going in, a document somebody ought to see. This opens an email to the coalition with your note filled in.
Email isn’t anonymous. If you need to stay out of it, say so and we’ll keep your name to ourselves. We check every tip before anything goes public.