On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.

San Antonio is a fast growing, fast.

Moving.

City with something new happening every day.

That's why each week we go on the record with Randy Beamer and the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the reporters roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalist behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the record with Randy Beamer.

Hi, everybody, and thank you for joining us for On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer, and this week we're starting with something the Defense Department announced just this week about a micro nuclear reactor, a new kind of technology, and the first of it in Texas for the Defense Department is coming to Joint Base San Antonio.

Here to talk about that and more is County Commissioner Grant Moody.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Happy to be here.

Tell us about this new technology, micro nuclear reactor.

Of course.

You know, decades ago was a huge issue in San Antonio in Texas.

South Texas nuclear project.

There's a lot of concerns about safety.

This is a whole different kind of technology.

Literally can be shipped on a shipping container and a truck.

Yeah.

No, this is a huge win for Joint Base San Antonio, for our community, for Texas.

And it's really exciting stuff.

As you mentioned, this is new technology.

I mean, this is not your grandfather's nuclear reactor.

You know, the last nuclear reactor that went online in Texas was over 33 years ago.

Right.

So technology has advanced to a significant level.

This, this was a selection by the Department of Defense that is going to place.

I think there were three selected nationwide Joint Base San Antonio being one of them that will provide that continuity of power.

If the grid were to ever go down again, which is is critical for some of their missions to ensure that they always have power available on Joint Base San Antonio.

And so that's what this nuclear power plant will provide.

But clearly, Governor Abbott, Trump administration have been very pro-nuclear.

I think it's a bipartisan, there's bipartisan support, for for advanced nuclear because it's clean energy.

It's clean energy.

It's reliable energy.

It's always.

On.

And the safety of it people here nuclear and thank oh my goodness.

As I understand it, this is kind of a self enclosed loop, like a box that you don't have to insert fuel rods or whatever for 10 to 15 years, things like that.

Is that what were their concerns for you about safety when you heard nuclear?

No there weren't.

So entrees is going to be the company that we're partnering with at joint Base San Antonio.

Their, micro, reactor is really the size of a pickup truck.

Will be buried underground.

They use the term walk away safe.

So the entire reactor will ultimately shut down on its own.

If anything were to ever happen.

And so, again, the technology, the safety has, has improved drastically over the years.

Something else people seem to forget.

We have hundreds of modular nuclear reactors in the United States Navy.

We don't talk about them very often, but they have an incredible track record of safety and ultimately, that kind of technology has advanced even further into these micro reactors.

What would you tell people about?

Well, first of all, we don't know where it's going to be exactly.

At Joint Base San Antonio.

And this can be applied to the grid can be off the grid.

And CPS energy is going to learn from this.

Yes, exactly.

And you know CPS has come alongside in all of this.

We, you know, have nuclear energy today.

CPS has a partnership with the, the current plant here in Texas.

But, going forward, I think there's real opportunity to look at expansion of commercial nuclear power in the state of Texas.

And CPS is obviously looking at that as well.

And data centers, this is another kind of possibility that's out there.

But we're talking a timeline of five, ten years, even for the one here, it would be 2029, I understand, before it could be up and running.

Yes, that's kind of the timeline they're looking at.

Obviously they're going to try to move that up, as quickly as they can.

But I think you mentioned a great point.

I read an article the other day that said our power demand, within Ercot could quadruple in the next six years.

That's a scary.

Thing.

Because of data centers.

Yeah, data centers, a lot of additional, demand being put on the grid.

And what, you know, these modular reactors can provide is those onsite power generation to not only add to that power supply, but also provide onsite power.

I brought this up, several times that, you know, there's a lot of push back on these massive transmission lines that are being built all over West Texas.

When you can put onsite nuclear power, then you don't have to spend those tens of billions of dollars on those transmission lines.

They can actually be spent on power generation.

Another big topic you talked about in the commissioners court this week, what to do about, overcrowding of the jail.

You know, the numbers keep going up.

We see projections.

We've talked about jail and access.

Some another one that some people want to build a new jail.

What did you come up with at the end of that discussion?

Well, I said this was long overdue.

I've been pushing for this.

I said these are critical, issues that are facing our county.

And literally yesterday, I walked walked through how we spent hundreds of millions of dollars on criminal justice system from the DA's office.

The jail, the sheriff's department, our courts, over time, costs, sending inmates out to surrounding counties.

I mean, we need to spend time on this.

We need to get this right.

And there's multiple parts of this, right?

There's a diversion.

A lot of conversations with the city about how we can kind of minimize demand for beds, for certain inmates that have mental health issues.

They don't need to be in the jail.

There's other places they can get treatment and be pulled out of the jail.

I've said I fully support, you know, an all of the above strategy.

In that case, that is just one piece.

I think it's necessary, but not sufficient.

We still need to talk about facilities because as you mentioned, we've had we've been overcapacity for a year and a half.

We're in a lull right now.

But nobody believes that over the next ten, 20 years in Bexar County, we see another 30% in population growth.

We're not going to need that additional bed space.

And so we need to be forward looking.

And I've tried to push commissioners court into that.

Because of where the jail is now.

It is a it is a barrier to West side expansion.

And a lot of people think it needs to be moved elsewhere.

Do you where could it be moved in and how would we pay for it?

So, those are our conversations we didn't touch on yesterday.

We have talked about the, requirement, or the possibility of a medical mental health annex at the existing jail.

And I think that that could solve a lot of these, these issues because we know we need additional medical care at our jail.

We know we have a a, a need for additional mental health beds and there's been an issue with the joint intake center with dual magistrate.

And so, building another annex could give you a chance to start over when it comes to the fire.

And make sure you you build it to the right scale and scope.

Ultimately, if you're talking about an entirely new jail, it likely wouldn't be, downtown.

We haven't really dove into the discussion on that one at this point.

But, I mean, I think all options have to be on the table.

We need to think about the fact that our existing jail and this was brought up by facilities.

Certain towers are over 40 years old now.

40 years old.

So what's the useful life on a jail?

And at what point are we putting so many tens of millions of dollars into maintenance that it makes more sense to just go ahead and bite the bullet and and think about financing?

A major project.

Do you think over the next two, you talked about Dallas building a jail.

Do you think over the next ten, ten years, there will be the momentum to do that for any number of reasons?

Like I said, and also the west side of downtown and that barrier to expansion on the West side.

I mean, eventually I think it has to be done, you know, is that in the next five years, ten years, 15 years, it's going to have to happen eventually.

So, you know, how much additional investment do you put in the existing footprint?

In terms of a new annex or, additional maintenance.

But at some point, we're going to have to, find a new, new, spot and a new jail.

All right.

Well, thank you very much for coming in.

Grant.

Moody County Commissioner, thanks very much.

Thank you.

A new report is out this week that outlines data centers, the growth in Texas and what that could mean for our water.

Here to talk about that is Rachael Haynes, policy director for the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

Tell us about this report.

And suddenly, as we heard just moments ago, data centers are front and center about water use and power use.

And what what are the headlines from your report?

Yeah.

So we started this report back in November because every time we had a community meeting or outreach or we're talking to people, at various events, the number one question they asked, regardless of what we were talking about, was what about data centers?

And it really seems like between 2023 or 2022, with the start of not nobody even understanding what I was or and this year, data centers have absolutely exploded and Texas is leading the growth.

We are predicted to even surpass Virginia, which is currently the record holder for data center facilities in the United States.

And so we wanted to look at what that meant for Texas and what that meant for Central Texas, the Hill Country region.

Because the San Antonio Austin corridor, I-35 corridor is predicted to be one of the leading markets in data center siting in the coming decade.

So we wanted to see what does that mean for water?

What does that mean for energy?

Are there any other impacts, any impacts to the state budget, local budget, pollution, public health, things like that that can better equip us when we talk to the community, can better equip the community, and can better equip lawmakers when they're trying to tackle it.

So we really are trying to help the decision makers put forward responsible regulations.

How concerned are you?

How dire is this issue?

I mean, we are already in a drought.

We have been talking for, you know, Corpus Christi has a huge water problem right now.

We've talked about bringing in water.

We did from Vista Verde that was controversial up in the hill country.

We took some of their water or getting some of their water.

Are you concerned we will have enough with data centers coming in?

You know, it is definitely a concern.

I mean, even the 2022 state water plan, which does not account for data centers at all.

Even the 2026 or 2027, the draft state water plan does not account for data centers.

There's no definition, there's no accounting for their use.

And we were already facing a 5 million acre feet shortage by 2027.

In the 2022 state water plan.

And that doesn't account for the impacts of this industry at all.

We're not looking at that impact right now in the state.

And so we're very concerned about the impact it could have on our water supplies.

Now the state legislature, some leaders very proud.

They tackled some water issues, some water issues in the last session.

But this really didn't come up.

It wasn't even on the on the horizon at that point, even though we were trying to lower data centers and other and other businesses here.

And I think one of the reasons for that is we knew about the electrical impacts of data centers.

We could see what was happening in states like Virginia and Ohio and other parts of the Midwest, where the energy prices were rising.

So we knew it was going to be an issue.

Ercot was seeing these requests come in.

And so the state government did rightfully tackle that.

But we didn't really have a good understanding of the water use impacts.

And that's just because the industry has changed so fast.

As generative AI increases and becomes faster and more powerful, it needs more water and it needs way more water than the industry even needed.

Two years ago.

And so everyone is just running behind this issue.

What about potable water versus non potable water and what can be done there.

Is that an issue the state needs to address?

I think it definitely is.

You know there's each data center is different.

There's no two really the same.

Each uses its own process.

One of the issues is we don't quite know what each data center is doing in terms of water.

And some do use far less water than others, but they all are currently using water, which is just probably not the best use of potable water supplies in the state.

We'd prefer to see it used for municipal supplies or agriculture or things like that.

And so in our report, we recommend that they use rainwater harvesting, atmospheric water harvesting, potable or non-potable municipal recycled wastewater, even produced water.

We have a huge produce water problem in the state.

Let's use that for data centers instead of for agriculture.

So we have a lot of recommendations, and we encourage the state to incentivize or direct the data centers to use these other supplies.

One of the things you're encouraging is also a little more local control, which the legislature has not been friendly to.

Is that going to happen?

We've seen some of the Hill Country communities try to work with data center companies and maybe negotiate with them.

Is that working?

Can they can they do anything at the local level, really to limit what they can, what those companies can do?

Well, we do think that community benefit agreements, those negotiations are useful.

And we definitely think that especially right now as counties, especially counties, don't have a lot of authority, they should definitely be using community benefit agreements to get the best possible, deal with data center companies, but that still just leaves so much on the table for them.

They aren't able to direct data centers where to site so they can.

There's no residential buffers.

They really just don't have any control over the noise in a way that cities would have control over.

So there's a lot of problems that counties are not equipped to handle with these massive and fast growing industries.

And so we really would encourage, the state legislature to start allowing especially counties to have authority over these basically urban issues that they don't have tools to meet.

What about the safety and the quality of the water in the aquifer?

What comes to your mind when you see these predictions of we could need four times the water for some things.

And we've already had to deal with some companies in the runoff wastewater treatment into the rivers.

Is this something that's on the radar with data centers, or are they all saying, no, we we're going to deal with it somehow.

We're going to deal with wastewater treatment ourselves.

Yes.

There's so there's two parts.

There's there's definitely you know, the Edwards aquifer is more protected than the other aquifers in the state because the EPA has pumping permits.

And so in terms of data centers being able to pump the Edwards Aquifer dry, that's not really a concern of ours.

Other aquifers in the state, the Trinity Aquifer, throughout the rest of the state, we're much more concerned if those, facilities are placing pumps in the ground.

Those are, of higher concern to us in the Edwards Aquifer.

Yeah.

Will still need to be, to be mindful, but less concerned.

Bigger concern.

I think, is the wastewater issue.

They are not right now necessarily treating their wastewater to drinking water quality standards.

There's not a permit per se for data center wastewater.

There's not a, again, no two data centers are alike, and there's a lot of NDAs and proprietary knowledge that we're not aware of in terms of what going is going into the wastewater and how they're treating it.

One other thing to be concerned about the Edwards Aquifer Authority this week, because of the recent rains we've had, the aquifer was up about eight feet at the J.

17 well, 635 so they because of that trigger, eased the water restrictions from their level four to level three people here, that kind of thing.

It's like, oh, well, there's no problems, but we're still what is it, 30ft below the historic average, right now.

Yeah.

What are you tell people about hey, hang on.

We're definitely not out of the woods.

I would say, you know, we're still at level three.

We're still 30ft below the historical average, and we're still predicted to be in a drought for the rest of the year.

And the aquifer surrounding us again, the Edwards or the Trinity Aquifer and the northern parts of the Edwards Aquifer have not seen that recovery, and it is all connected system.

So while we may be out of the woods this month, there's no telling that next month we won't be right back where we started.

And you hope to work with the legislature on a whole lot of things.

This report, you're going to be starting to talk with people about that.

Yes, absolutely.

So we are wanting we are using this data center issue.

Because it is it is a concerning issue.

We do need to have it regulated.

We need innovative solutions.

But it also is just an example of what happens when there is a lack of a regulatory and planning framework.

This is the issue right now and we hope to solve it, but we hope to work with the legislature to put in tools that for whatever the next big issue or big industry is that we're prepared for that one in advance, and we're not playing catch up like we are now.

Well, good luck with that.

Thank you very much for coming in a fascinating report.

It's good read.

Rachel Haynes, policy director for the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

On our reporters roundtable this week, the Supreme Court.

Okay, the new Texas redistricting map drawn up by lawmakers.

So many of us will have different people will be voting on in different districts here to talk about that and much more is Andrea Rush, senior government and politics reporter for the San Antonio Report.

Thank you very much for coming in.

This, I guess it really wasn't a surprise.

Conservative Supreme Court, okay, this but this really throws into kind of uncertainty for a lot of people who they're going to vote on what district they're in.

As we're now just getting our cards from voter cards.

What's so important to note?

These are the same districts that we use during the primary.

These are the maps that the Texas Legislature approved over the summer that created five new pickup opportunities for Republicans in Texas.

Headed into this tough midterm election where they're they're concerned about losing seats elsewhere.

They thought, okay, let's squeeze some more out of this red state.

They passed these maps over the summer.

They were sued by voting rights groups.

And then in November, they Democrats who had been challenging these maps, got a little bit of, perhaps good news from a federal court in which a Republican judge said, yes, these were racially gerrymandered, but the Supreme Court quickly came in and said in a temporary manner, we're going to use these new maps that those state lawmakers drew, because filing had already opened at that point, people were signing up to run in these new districts.

But then we went into this March 3rd primary in which, people didn't know that they had changed districts in Bexar County.

This big blue urban center was one of the biggest parts of the state that was chopped up to try to accommodate these more Republican seats, and 43% of Bexar County voters were moved into a new district.

But very few people knew that because they hadn't received new voter registration cards.

If you were not online, you would have no way of knowing.

Many people showed up to try and vote in a congressional district that they weren't in anymore.

But now these voter registration cards are out, and we still have primary runoffs coming up in May 26th.

So it's important to go figure out what district you're in.

If you're on the north side, you probably switched between one or more Republican leaning districts.

If you are downtown, you might have been in the Texas 35 represented by Greg Casar.

And now you'd probably be in and walking Castro's district.

But huge amount of change.

And also some swing districts.

There are at least what Democrats are hoping are swing districts that weren't in the past.

And some of the races you're following, district 23 and district 35.

Yeah.

So interesting things have sort of happened since this first redrawing of the maps.

And one is that other states have followed suit and said there's blue states have said, okay, fine, we'll redraw our districts too and create more pickup opportunities.

We've also had a lot of special elections where Democrats have swung, where voters have swung hard toward Democrats and sort of made this new map, which was drawn entirely off of Trump's performance in in Texas in 2024.

You know, they created districts that Trump carried easily.

People have started to wonder whether those are truly safe red districts.

And one of them is Texas 35, on the southeast side of San Antonio that was created in this Greg Cazares district that was very blue.

And then they drew it down here.

He didn't even live in the district.

So he's running for an Austin centric district.

But this you know, Trump plus ten district on the southeast side that's supposed to be you know key to they're picking up seats.

Democrats now have said that they're going to put a bunch of money into this race.

Their main super PAC just reserved a bunch of ads there for the fall.

There's runoffs in both the Democratic primary and the Republican primary.

Interestingly, no one knows who their nominee is going to be.

The Republicans drew it for John Lujan.

But then national leaders have come in for Carlos de la Cruz.

Yes.

Trump's endorsement, Democrats didn't get the recruits that they wanted in this race because they were challenging the maps at the time.

But they have, a longtime sheriff's deputy, Johnny Garcia, and a housing activist, Maureen Galindo.

But then even more surprising, in this initial round of ad reservations from Democrats, from national Democrats was Texas 23, which is Tony Gonzalez's district that he has just resigned from, where the Republican nominee is now, Brandon Herrera, who he sent, who was in a runoff with Tony Gonzalez last time and against Democrat Katie Padilla Stout.

And that district hasn't been on.

It was the swing district that was, you know, the center of the political universe that.

Six years ago.

Yeah.

That was changed after the 2020 census to become more Republican friendly.

Democrats really haven't looked at it since.

But, with Brendan Herrera as the nominee, are now thinking there's a lot of change happening in South Texas and and that maybe he's somebody who could give them an opportunity there.

And I saw a poll that said, that district now is maybe 3 to 5% plus for Democrats.

And so the governor, in calling a special election, has to wonder, okay, if I call a special election for the Tony Gonzalez seat or we're going to have a Democrat win.

It was a, district that Trump carried by almost 15 percentage points in 2024.

But special elections are not the same as general elections.

And you had a state senate district in Fort Worth.

It flipped 31 points in a special election earlier this year.

And since Congress is so closely divided right now, Republicans have this tiny majority.

You know, Tony Gonzalez and a Democrat from California exited at the same time.

California plans to fill their members deep blue seat.

But I think even Republicans would say that waiting on this district in Texas when you could perhaps in theory, it's a red district.

In theory, Texas should be putting somebody in there to fill Tony Gonzalez's spot and shore up their majority.

But if they're not that that signals some concern.

And, I should say Herrera was too far to the right for many Republicans.

Back when he was facing Gonzalez a couple of years ago.

Is that still a concern like Paxton?

Maybe too conservative for some Republicans to win in a general and the Senate race?

He's it his his claim to fame is his on YouTube and he's young and he since becoming the nominee has been embraced by lots of the people who thought that he was at one point, you know, going to put that district in trouble.

He's got the president's endorsement.

He has congressional leaders endorsing him.

But I think there's also a lot of Republicans who are hoping to glue the party back together ahead of a tough midterm.

And he's he's been on social media and talking about needing to get John Cornyn out.

He doesn't have a primary runoff anymore.

He's the nominee.

And of course, wins.

Well, there's going to have to be a lot of healing after whatever happens.

What do you think in the Paxton, Cornyn race?

Oh, my gosh, I have no predictions there.

That's why I ask you.

I, I'm sorry, the Carlos de la Cruz fundraiser with RFK Jr.

That's interesting because you say, really, we haven't seen much of Carlos de la Cruz other than to know he's a brother of another, a congresswoman down in South Texas, but hasn't shown up at many things.

Yeah, this race is so interesting because it's a it's a Trump plus ten district.

Some people look at that and say, you can have any kind of Republican you want in there.

But Texas lawmakers looked at it and seemed to draw this around.

John Lujan, a state representative who's won some tough races.

He won a state House district that Biden had carried, sort of a person who can win tough races.

But then he wound up in this runoff with Carlos de la Cruz.

It was 11 Republicans who signed up initially and at the very last minute, on the day before early voting started, the president endorsed Carlos de la Cruz.

Congressional leaders wound up coming in for him.

He was in Corpus Christi with the president.

But he hasn't been campaigning openly.

And in San Antonio, we hadn't really heard anything from him since he first announced his candidacy back in October.

He had a his first media event on the day of the first day, on Election Day in March.

And hasn't really been seen since.

But the Trump, endorsement trumped everything else.

Yeah, I think this like this coalescing around Carlos de la Cruz and Brandon Herrera, there's perhaps a desire to promote some young talent.

But I haven't exactly heard from Republican leaders why they chose either of these people.

And in the meantime, we do have some elections here, although they are definitely.

What do we have 2% turnout so far.

So before the May 26th primary runoff, we have this, May 2nd school board and local election that the Texas uniform election.

And I know that these two things have already caused so much confusion.

We hear from people at the polls that people are showing up to try and vote in the primary runoff and have totally forgotten about this one.

But and also people who believe that maybe they would have something on this May 2nd ballot, but only a quarter of Bexar County voters.

So about 340,000 county voters have something on this May 2nd ballot.

It's northeast ISD, Alamo Heights ISD, Athena Valley, southwest ISD.

There's an Alamo Colleges trustee on the ballot.

There's also a shirt Cibolo Universal City ISD bond election.

There are municipal races in 14 smaller municipalities.

And at the end of early voting, which finished up on Tuesday only about 6100 ballots had been cast.

So about less than 2% of the eligible voters.

But there's this great map on the elections department website where you can just look at it and see whether you likely have anything on this ballot.

And whether you're likely to cover it.

We'll cover that.

We're covering the voter guide with every candidate on the May 2nd ballot, and we have that map on our website, too.

So there's interesting politics happening in these races, because the politics of education and public education have become so interesting.

It is there are groups trying to influence these northeast ISD, these Alamo Heights and, Alamo colleges rise to.

The trickle down from wherever it's been.

Fascinating, interesting to, cover this, I'm sure.

And I know you'll be busy for years.

Thank you very much, Andrea Rush, senior government and politics reporter.

You can see her stuff in the San Antonio Report online essay report.org.

Thank you.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can watch the show again.

You can see any previous shows and download it as a podcast.

Just go to KLRN.org.

I'm Randy Beamer and we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.