The water supplier already says it’s running short.
Tarrant Regional Water District just published its official 50-year plan. None of its numbers include a hyperscale data center — and that gap is the heart of our concern.
The short version
TRWD — the wholesaler that supplies the raw water our lake and our utility district depend on... published its official 50-year water supply plan in August 2025. In its own numbers, TRWD says the regional supply is already stretched thin and could fall short within a few years.
None of those numbers account for a hyperscale data center.
This isn’t an advocacy paper. It’s the water supplier’s own engineering analysis — which is exactly what makes it powerful.
A shortfall as early as 2030.
Under dry conditions, TRWD’s own modeling shows it could fall about 7% short of meeting demand by 2030 — a gap it would have to close with drought restrictions or emergency measures.
They’re already planning for the worst case.
TRWD built the entire plan around its most aggressive growth scenario, because actual demand is already tracking that high. The region set back-to-back record water-use years in 2022 and 2023.
The data center isn’t in these numbers.
The forecast is driven by population growth and suburban development. A large new industrial user like a hyperscale data center doesn’t appear to be included — meaning that demand would land on top of a system already projecting a gap.
Cedar Creek’s water is shrinking, not growing.
Because of sedimentation, the reliable yield from Cedar Creek Reservoir...our reservoir...is projected to decline over the coming decades, not increase.
TRWD is itself shopping for more water — in our county.
The plan lists buying groundwater near Lake Palestine, in Henderson County, as a strategy to shore up supply. A wholesaler buying new water to stay reliable is not a system with spare capacity to give away.
“Community alignment” is one of TRWD’s own goals.
The District lists stakeholder and community acceptance as one of its four core planning objectives — and acknowledges that new water projects can meet local resistance.
This is not about being against technology, business, or growth. It comes down to a simple asymmetry:
The regional water wholesaler is openly planning around shortfalls and conservation restrictions during a Governor-declared drought — while a large new industrial water user is being lined up on the same source, with none of that demand disclosed in the planning record.
Once that demand is locked in, it competes with our homes, our farms, and our lake every single year — including the dry ones the District is already worried about.
Bottom line: TRWD’s own plan is one of the strongest, most credible pieces of evidence we have because it comes straight from TRWD, not from us.
the harder we are to ignore.
Bring this with you tomorrow night.
TRWD is hosting its Cedar Creek Community Conversations in Mabank — 5:30–7:30 PM at Mabank Pavilion. Come at 5:30 sharp, bring a neighbor and your yard sign, and let’s show up in force.
Get directions to Mabank Pavilion →Source: Tarrant Regional Water District, Integrated Water Supply Plan Update — Executive Summary, August 2025. All figures are from TRWD’s published modeling. Read the full plan ↗
Save Cedar Creek Lake
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