Salazar: WTX Needs Honest Water Policies Now

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Living in West Texas, we don’t need a study to tell us water is running low; we see
it every day.

In recent years our communities have faced conservation notices, local lakes falling below 10-percent capacity, and aquifers that are struggling to recharge.

Families, farmers, and ranchers are already feeling the strain.

The Texas Water Development Board warns that if nothing changes, regions across our state could face “severe water shortages by 2030.”

As someone born and raised in this district, that is not a number I can ignore.

At the same time, Texas is welcoming large-scale data centers that rely heavily on water to cool their servers.

These facilities bring economic opportunity, but experts have raised valid concerns about their impact on rural water supplies.

According to reporting from The Wall Street Journal, some data centers use “up to a million gallons of water a day,” comparable to 10,000 households. The Texas Tribune similarly notes that “data centers are drawing as much water as small towns.”

This doesn’t mean we turn away development. It means we must be smart, transparent, and forward-thinking about how these projects affect the people who already call West Texas home.

There is a reasonable, middle-ground approach that protects both jobs and water:

• Make water use transparency a standard part of project approval.
• Set drought based water caps similar to what agriculture already follows.
• Encourage water-efficient cooling technologies that can cut usage by up to
  90%.
• Ensure rural ratepayers aren’t subsidizing industrial water demands.
• Plan regionally because aquifers don’t follow county lines.

These aren’t partisan ideas; they’re practical ideas.

Water touches everything in West Texas: our farms, our schools, our businesses, and our future. If Texas is “open for business,” it must also be open to honest conversations about how to protect the resource that keeps our communities alive.

West Texans deserve long term planning grounded in facts, transparency, and common sense. We are resilient people, but resilience alone won’t refill a lake or an aquifer. It will take proactive leadership and a willingness to think 10, 20, and 30-years ahead.

— Rev. Shiloh Salazar, Big Spring
Candidate for TX House, District 72