Residents, conservation groups and experts press LCRA over plan’s hydrology and AI data‑center water demands
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Summary
Multiple public commenters, including Spicewood Beach residents and the Central Texas Water Coalition, urged LCRA to strengthen protections for in‑basin firm customers, raised past local outages, and warned about rising water demand from AI/data centers; CTWC presented an analysis that yields a substantially lower firm supply estimate.
Dozens of residents and conservation advocates used the Water Operations Committee meeting on Feb. 18 to press the Lower Colorado River Authority over whether the proposed water‑management amendment adequately protects local communities and firm water customers.
"CTWC's analysis finds the proposed LCRA amendment is not sufficiently protective," David Lindsey, vice president of technical research for the Central Texas Water Coalition, told the committee. Lindsey said CTWC's adjustments to historical naturalized flows — intended to reflect today's watershed with many more ponds and other changes — reduce the Highland Lakes' estimated firm yield to about 347,000 acre‑feet, a figure he said is roughly 70,000 acre‑feet lower than the amendment assumes.
Multiple Spicewood Beach residents recounted a severe local outage in the early 2010s when their system ran out of water and LCRA provided trucked deliveries for weeks. "Spicewood Beach became known as the first and only Texas town to run out of water," Debbie Brown said, describing daily trucking of 35,000–40,000 gallons and strict conservation measures that followed. Pam Simic said those restrictions forced "military style" five‑minute showers and warned that shifting to deep‑end intakes could leave shallow‑intake communities vulnerable.
Separately, Brad Knowles described industry benchmarks for AI/data‑center water use and recommended mandatory water impact disclosures, multi‑year water‑use plans and financial assurance from applicants. He said a 100 MW evaporatively cooled data center might use roughly 528,000 gallons per day and that modern AI facilities can require substantially more cooling water at peak loads.
LCRA staff acknowledged the public concerns during the participant process and noted that the recommendation uses TCEQ‑approved hydrology through 2023 and modeling intended to maintain minimum modeled combined storage above 600,000 acre‑feet under the framework. The committee did not vote on the amendment; staff said they will present it to the full board later the same day.
Speakers asked LCRA to conduct additional evaluations, to consider reopening the plan if independent analyses reach similar conclusions, and to prioritize protections for in‑basin firm customers and communities with fixed intakes.
