San Antonio Faces Toughest Water Restrictions in Decades as Edwards Aquifer Hits Historic Lows

Freitag, 25. September 2026

The Edwards Aquifer Authority declared Stage 5 drought restrictions — the most severe level on its scale — for the San Antonio Pool on September 21, after the aquifer's benchmark J-17 index well in Bexar County fell to a 10-day average of 624.7 feet above mean sea level, just below the 625-foot Stage 5 trigger. The reading is roughly 33 feet below the well's historical average, and the last time levels were this low was in June 1990; only the historic drought of 1956, the most severe on record in Texas, has pushed the aquifer lower.

Stage 5 restrictions require groundwater permit holders across the San Antonio Pool — spanning parts of Atascosa, Bexar, Caldwell, Comal, Guadalupe, Hays, and Medina counties — to cut withdrawals by 44%, according to the Authority's September 21 press release. The declaration follows a brief reprieve earlier this year, when the aquifer was lifted from Stage 4 to Stage 3 in June after San Antonio's drought, then in its seventh year, eased somewhat — a recovery that has since reversed as dry conditions returned over the summer.

The Edwards Aquifer's troubles are unfolding against a broader national backdrop of persistent drought. As of September 15, nearly 50% of the United States and Puerto Rico, and almost 60% of the Lower 48 states, were in drought, according to the U.S. government's Drought.gov monitor, with flash drought conditions continuing to worsen across parts of the West. Groundwater, which supplies more than 40% of the water used for U.S. agriculture and domestic supply, typically comes under heavier pumping pressure during dry years — a dynamic that can reduce aquifers' future availability even after rainfall returns, unless paired with active recharge strategies.

Aging infrastructure compounds the strain. Nationally, leaks and water main breaks are estimated to waste about 6 billion gallons of treated water every day — enough over the course of a year to supply more than 30 million households, according to Drought.gov figures cited in recent reporting on the country's "twin water crises" of drought and infrastructure decay. Researchers at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment have also pointed to governance shortfalls in the American West, including outdated water district structures that leave some vulnerable communities underrepresented in decisions about how scarce water is allocated.

Adding a new dimension to the competition for groundwater, several recent analyses have flagged the rapid growth of data centers as an emerging claimant on regional water supplies, arguing that drought-hit agricultural regions are now increasingly competing with data-center cooling demands for the same limited groundwater resources — a trend likely to intensify scrutiny of water allocation policy in drought-prone states in the coming year.