Save Cedar Creek Lake
Henderson County · Texas

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This lake is who we are.

Cedar Creek Reservoir was built sixty-one years ago to serve Tarrant County's drinking water. Around it, an entire community grew up. Here is what that community looks like, and why no part of it can afford an industrial neighbor.

The footprint

33,750 acres. 320 miles of shoreline. Ten towns.

Live map of Cedar Creek Lake. The marker shows the approximate location of the proposed KC2 Cypress Creek data-center parcel on the west side of the lake. The lake straddles Henderson and Kaufman counties. Open full map ↗

Cedar Creek Reservoir was completed in 1965 by the Tarrant Regional Water District. At full pool, it covers 33,750 acres. Roughly 320 miles of shoreline ring it, most of it residential, the rest a mix of marinas, parks, and undeveloped frontage.

Year-round population in the lake-area cities runs around 18,000. On summer weekends, that triples. Tarrant County, two hours west, draws drinking water from the lake, connecting 1.2 million more people to its level.

The land here is exactly what data-center site selectors look for: cheap rural acreage, water in volume, transmission corridors within reach, no zoning rules to slow them down, and a county tax base that says yes to incentives. We are not their first target. We do not intend to be their next one.

We already proved the point here. Diode Ventures acquired the former Key Ranch parcel on the west side of the lake, bounded by Highway 274, Old River Road, and Key Ranch Road, for a data-center campus. It sat about 350 yards from the water and directly across a two-lane county road from occupied homes, with no buffer, no industrial zone, and no setback between the two. The community organized, and Diode pulled out. See the site on Google Maps →  ·  Why that spot was too close →

The siting problem

This site is too close to where people live.

The proposed campus sits directly across a two-lane county road from existing homes. There is no buffer, no industrial zone, no transition. The fence line is the back yard.

The KC2 Cypress Creek parcel is bounded by Highway 274, Old River Road, and Key Ranch Road, roughly 350 yards from open water and, in places, only a few hundred feet from occupied residences across Key Ranch Road. These are not farmhouses on a thousand acres. They are lake homes, retirement homes, and weekend homes on platted residential lots, the kind of neighborhood no county would knowingly drop heavy industry into.

Every documented harm of a hyperscale campus, the 24/7 cooling-fan hum measured at 75 decibels at the fence line, the monthly all-generator diesel test at 85, the all-night security lighting, the round-the-clock truck loop, scales with a single variable: distance to the nearest bedroom window. At this site, that distance is measured in hundreds of feet, not miles.

Mature data-center jurisdictions learned this the hard way and now write minimum residential setbacks into their codes, commonly a quarter-mile or more between an industrial campus and any home. But those codes were written for noise and light alone, in places that had no drinking-water reservoir to protect. A campus drawing millions of gallons a day from the lake puts far more than the nearest street at risk. Henderson County has no setback rule of any kind today, which is the only reason a site this close to families can even be proposed. That is why we are asking the County and the cities to adopt an enforceable 2-mile setback from homes, schools, and the shoreline, before, not after, this campus is approved.

You would not put a power plant across the street from a subdivision. This proposal puts a power plant, a water-treatment operation, and a server farm there at once.
~350yds
From the proposed campus to the open water of Cedar Creek Lake.
Parcel records · Hwy 274 / Key Ranch Road
10mi
The enforceable setback we're asking Henderson County to adopt from homes, schools, and shoreline. Most setbacks only protect the houses nearest the fence — but a water draw this size touches the whole reservoir, so the buffer has to match the watershed, not the property line.
Save Cedar Creek Lake · coalition ask
75dB
Continuous cooling-fan noise at the fence line, the property line these homes share.
Prince William County 2024 sound survey
Who governs the water

Two boards. Both writing letters.

Cedar Creek Lake water is governed by two distinct authorities. Both have data-center concerns on file as of this week.

West Cedar Creek MUD
Local · CCN holder

West Cedar Creek Municipal Utility District

The local utility holds a Certificate of Convenience and Necessity for the lake-area communities. Per its May 2026 District Statement, Texas Water Code Chapters 49 and 13 require it to serve all lawful land uses, so it cannot simply reject a data center outright. But on May 21, 2026 its Board did something narrower and powerful: it adopted a resolution temporarily suspending new service commitments to "High-Intensity Water Customers", any project the District Engineer projects to exceed 250,000 gallons per day or to strain system pressure, storage, treatment, or drought capacity. The suspension runs until April 15, 2027 while the District completes capacity and drought-resiliency studies and drafts binding standards. The data center's 5-million-gallon-a-day request is roughly 20 times that threshold.

TRWD
Regional

Tarrant Regional Water District

Operator of Cedar Creek Reservoir as one of three drinking-water sources for 1.2 million North Texans. Reports to a board elected by Tarrant County voters.

The economy

What we sell here, and to whom.

Cedar Creek's economic base is recreation, real estate, and retirees. None of them tolerate industrial neighbors.

The Henderson County tax base around the lake is dominated by residential property, primary homes for retirees, second homes for DFW weekenders, short-term rentals on the water. Marina operations, bait shops, lake restaurants, fishing guide services, real-estate brokerages, and contractor trades fill in the rest.

Bass fishing alone is estimated to generate tens of millions of dollars in annual visitor spending across the corridor. Cedar Creek hosts multiple Bassmaster, MLF, and major-circuit tournaments every year. Tournament directors choose Cedar Creek because the water is clean, deep, and reliably high.

Each of those revenue streams shares one dependency: the lake remaining a lake. A development that "could permanently change" the level of the lake, to use the words of public testimony, does not just harm the property owners next door. It dismantles the income source for everyone within fifty miles.

The tax math nobody runs

A data center doesn't grow the tax base. It shrinks it.

The pitch is always "new tax revenue." Once you account for the abatement and the hit to home values, not just next door, but around the whole lake, the honest number is a net loss to the County, the school district, and the hospital district.

The case for a data center always rests on one figure: the new property-tax revenue it promises the County and the local districts. That figure is almost always overstated, for two reasons.

First, the revenue is usually abated. Hyperscale developers routinely negotiate Chapter 312 county tax abatements, and until recently Chapter 313 school-value limitations, that waive the bulk of that "new" tax bill for ten years or more. The headline number and the check the County actually cashes are not the same number.

Second, the campus lowers the value of the homes nearest it. In Virginia's "Data Center Alley," homes within a mile of a campus lost 8 to 15% of market value from the noise, light, and traffic alone, concentrated on properties with line-of-sight or downwind exposure.

Third, and far larger: if the campus draws down the lake, the hit is not one mile, it is the entire shoreline. The applicant has asked for 5 million gallons of raw water a day. Every lake home, marina, and waterfront lot derives its value from one thing, a full lake at conservation pool. Drop the level, and you don't just devalue the houses within a mile of the data center; you devalue every property around all 320 miles of shoreline at once, the docks left sitting over mud, the "waterfront" lots no longer on the water. That is the overwhelming majority of Henderson County's taxable value, and it moves together.

Put it together and the trade is plain. The County swaps a discounted, abated industrial parcel for a permanent reduction in the residential tax base that actually funds its schools, roads, and emergency services. The lost property-tax income, from depressed home values near the campus and from a devalued lake everywhere else, can easily exceed every dollar the data center ever pays, and unlike the abatement, that value loss does not expire in ten years.

Illustrative, not a county estimate: a conservative single-digit decline applied to the near-lake homes within a mile already removes more taxable value than an abated campus is projected to add. Apply even a small lake-wide decline across all 320 miles of shoreline, the scenario if the water draw lowers the pool, and the loss dwarfs anything the data center could contribute. The coalition is requesting an independent fiscal-impact study before any abatement is voted on.

320mi
Of shoreline that loses value together if the water draw lowers the lake, not just the homes within a mile.
Cedar Creek Reservoir shoreline
8–15%
Drop in home value within one mile of a hyperscale campus, from noise, light, and traffic alone.
Loudoun & Prince William County assessments
10yrs+
Typical abatement term, the "new revenue" is largely waived for a decade or more.
Texas Tax Code Ch. 312 abatements
May 12, 2026

The County moved first.

After more than an hour of public testimony, dominated by lake-area residents, the Henderson County Commissioners Court adopted a resolution opposing data-center development in Texas without enforceable safeguards.

Resolution 2026-05-12

Resolution of the Henderson County Commissioners Court Opposing Data Center Development Without Adequate Safeguards

Whereas, Cedar Creek Lake is a critical regional water source operated by the Tarrant Regional Water District, supplying drinking water to over 1.2 million North Texans;

Whereas, the lake-area communities of Henderson County depend on the recreational, residential, and tourism economy enabled by the reservoir at conservation pool;

Whereas, hyperscale data center facilities consume potable water and electricity at industrial scale, generate continuous noise, and require infrastructure costs that under current law are borne by ratepayers and taxpayers outside the developer;

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Commissioners Court of Henderson County opposes the siting of any large-scale data center within Henderson County or upstream of Cedar Creek Reservoir until the State of Texas adopts enforceable rules governing water use, noise, setbacks, and tax abatements;

And further resolved that this resolution be transmitted to the Texas Legislature, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the Public Utility Commission of Texas, and the Tarrant Regional Water District.

Adapted summary based on public testimony and press reporting from the May 12, 2026 court meeting. Final resolution text on file at the County Clerk's office.

We won the battle. Now we protect the water.

Diode has pulled out, but Tarrant Regional Water District still owns Cedar Creek Lake’s water and can contract it to the next data center. We are asking TRWD to hold any data center to Governor Abbott’s standard: reuse their own water, and weigh the impact on surrounding communities before selling a drop of the lake. That takes a coalition too big to ignore, so we are growing to 10,000 members and keeping the pressure on Austin.

Contact your officials Join the Fight