As Texas sees a rapid increase in proposed data centers tied to AI and cloud computing, residents in McLennan County are trying to understand what those projects could mean for local water, electricity and rural communities.
More than 150 people attended Thursday night’s “Data Center Impacts” forum hosted by the Waco Bridge, where researchers, environmental advocates and local officials discussed the strain large-scale data centers could place on infrastructure already under pressure across Texas.
For some attendees, the event validated concerns they have spent months raising about a proposed hyperscale data center near Lacy Lakeview.
“In the last several months, a small group of Ross residents have gathered twice a month to plan their opposition to a proposed data center in Lacy Lakeview,” said attendee Shawna Fennell, who lives near the proposed site.
The proposed facility could require significant amounts of water and electricity — concerns that dominated much of the evening’s discussion.
Waco Bridge reporter Sam Shaw opened the event with an overview of the two data centers now proposed in McLennan County. He said some nearby residents only recently learned about the projects.
“Some of these folks around the project site, literally their backyards looking out onto this area, didn’t know that there was a hyperscale data center planned,” Shaw said.
Several attendees said that lack of transparency has fueled concerns about where water would come from and how much energy future facilities could require.
Margaret Cook, vice president of water and community resilience for the Houston Advanced Research Center, said the impact of a data center depends heavily on the infrastructure already in place.
“If you're a community that's water stressed, then you may be a lot more concerned,” Cook said.
While McLennan County leaders have spent years planning for future water needs, Cook warned that Texas overall is already facing mounting pressure on its water supply.
“Texas is carrying all of its groceries,” Cook said. “We don’t have room to carry another bag.”
Cook was joined on the panel by Luke Metzger, executive director of Environment Texas, and McLennan County Judge Scott Felton.
Panelists spent much of the evening discussing how difficult it is to predict exactly how much water and electricity future data centers could require.
One proposed project in Riesel could use enough electricity to power roughly 100,000 Texas homes on a summer day, though panelists noted projected energy demands can vary widely.
That uncertainty worried Metzger.
“It’s unclear that we can meet the power demands,” Metzger said.
He said statewide electricity demand projections tied to data centers are as high as two times what Texas currently produces. Even if Texas can meet that demand, Metzger argued, much of the additional power would likely come from non-renewable energy sources.
For attendees like Fennell, the uncertainty surrounding the industry was one of the biggest takeaways from the forum.
“It was a lot of validation of the things that we have already assumed,” Fennell said.
But not everyone agreed with the tone of the discussion.
Jill King, who has worked in advanced computing and artificial intelligence, said she worried the event focused too heavily on worst-case scenarios without enough discussion of possible solutions or technological advances.
“There are so many solutions out there,” King said. “And nobody here talked about that.”
King also worried that none of the experts or panelists represented the data centers proposed in McLennan County.
"These people deserve answers, they really do." But, she said, "they didn't get them tonight for sure because there was no one here that represented the data center that's going in Lacy Lakeview."
Event organizers told KWBU they invited developers and city officials from Lacy Lakeview to attend the forum but did not ask them to serve on the panel because the event was intended to focus broadly on the growing data center industry rather than any single project.
The discussion continued well beyond the formal panel, with audience members asking questions about closed-loop cooling systems, technology to mitigate water and electricity usage and how locals can help prevent data centers in their area.
Organizers said they received roughly 50 audience questions during the event — more than there was time to answer during the forum itself.
“We have those questions still, and we will try to answer them in our future coverage,” Waco Bridge Editor-in-Chief J.B. Smith said in a phone call Friday.
For residents like Sara Mynarcik, the number of unanswered questions underscored a larger frustration surrounding the proposed projects.
“Many of the questions that were asked tonight need to be asked of the data center developer,” Mynarcik said.
Got a tip? Email Molly-Jo Tilton at Molly-jo_tilton@baylor.edu.
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