{"id":13273,"date":"2025-09-18T06:52:57","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T12:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/2025\/09\/18\/coltala-eyes-water-moonshot-as-booming-dallas-fort-worth-growth-raises-the-stakes\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T06:52:58","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T12:52:58","slug":"coltala-eyes-water-moonshot-as-booming-dallas-fort-worth-growth-raises-the-stakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/2025\/09\/18\/coltala-eyes-water-moonshot-as-booming-dallas-fort-worth-growth-raises-the-stakes\/","title":{"rendered":"Coltala eyes water \u2018moonshot\u2019 as booming Dallas-Fort Worth growth raises the stakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Introduction to North Texas’ Water Crisis<\/h1>\n

Crises, it\u2019s often said, create their own opportunities \u2015 and with a buoyant regional economy, North Texas currently has no shortage of the latter. Yet booming growth is running headlong into the reality of scarce resources \u2015 primarily water. Unless something changes, current supplies won\u2019t be able to satisfy multiplying demand associated with the relentless buildout of data centers, a soaring population and the everyday needs of current residents.<\/p>\n

With Texas preparing to invest billions over the coming decades to address the Lone Star State\u2019s growing water needs, the focus is shifting to how private companies can help the state avert a crisis. Enter Coltala Holdings, a Dallas-based private equity firm that last month acquired Alsay, a municipal and industrial well water powerhouse located in Houston. Coltala has put nearly $500 million to work in Texas-based companies.<\/p>\n

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Alsay, which has more than 60 years of experience and more than $100 million worth of business, now becomes Coltala Water Holdings \u2015 a linchpin to helping address Texas\u2019 growing supply needs by tapping into private sector ingenuity.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

It\u2019s part of what Edward Crawford, Coltala\u2019s co-founder and co-CEO, calls the firm\u2019s \u201cmoonshot in water,\u201d he told The Dallas Morning News in an interview last month. \u201cIf you look at all the data centers coming online, that\u2019s going to be massive, like, we\u2019re gonna need tons of water for that. That\u2019s not talking about going from 30 million people to 50 million people in the population.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more on the Future of North Texas initiative, visit dallasnews.com\/futurentx<\/p>\n

Although officials are rallying to build out reservoir capacity, projects can take decades or longer to complete. For a booming North Texas economy \u2015 whose population is expected to double by 2070 \u2015 time is of the essence.<\/p>\n

Related<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at Dallas, specifically, if you look at the Bois d\u2019Arc reservoir, it took, what, 30 years to build that\u201d for about 2 million residents, Crawford said. \u201cLike, we don\u2019t have 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A lot of business\u2019<\/h2>\n

\"Water<\/p>\n

Water flows through a sedimentation basin at the North Texas Municipal Water District 400-acre treatment plant in Wylie, Texas in 2018. North Texas Municipal and Dallas Water Utilities are preparing for the big increases in demand in the coming decades as well as taking into account the ever present threat of drought.<\/p>\n

Tom Fox \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n

Texas has a double-barrel problem, in which rapid economic expansion is putting growing strains on resources like energy and water. According to state projections, water supplies may tumble 18% by 2070, just as demand is expected to jump by 9%. <\/p>\n

As the population swells, officials need to upgrade tens of billions in aging infrastructure (which public officials are required to fix), while finding new water supplies large enough to satisfy a massive influx of residents (often the domain of private companies). <\/p>\n

That includes the number of companies planting down roots to tap into the Lone Star \u201cmiracle\u201d of low taxes and light regulation. <\/p>\n

Those considerations were partly why Coltala found value in buying Alsay, whose top-producing wells can crank out thousands of gallons of water per minute. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs the older water wells start to age out \u2026 they need to be replaced. And so that is a revenue stream for so that\u2019s a lot of business,\u201d Joe Slavik, President of Alsay, told The News in an interview. <\/p>\n

Proposals like the Marvin Nichols Reservoir in North Texas were designed in part to address some of those challenges, but the project has gotten bogged down in interregional conflict that\u2019s delaying its completion. <\/p>\n

At around 55%, the majority of Texas\u2019 supplies come from groundwater, which rely on a functioning network of aquifers and wells \u2013 many of which are old and in need of repair or replacement. They are connected to dozens of water bodies in North Texas, many of them manmade, that help feed regional demand.<\/p>\n

With more people and firms flocking to the state, \u201cour existing surface water supplies, the lakes, etc, they\u2019re getting tapped out<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction to North Texas’ Water Crisis Crises, it\u2019s often said, create their own opportunities \u2015 and with a buoyant regional economy, North Texas currently has no shortage of the latter. Yet booming growth is running headlong into the reality of scarce resources \u2015 primarily water. Unless something changes, current supplies won\u2019t be able to satisfy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":13275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13273","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dmn-dallas-news-prod.cdn.arcpublishing.com\/resizer\/v2\/5L4FKRIEYZ2CME64RLX4MKDUNQ.jpg?auth=d07867593b81bfbb4d56787a56b872b77cc244cd76a04c645077172781c4d057&quality=80&width=1200&height=630&smart=true","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13276,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13273\/revisions\/13276"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citystuff.com\/dallas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}