At least in Germany, lignite plants are operating on locally mined lignite, which means there is a big open-pit mine directly next to the plant.

This means that the water table needs to be drained to keep the mine dry. The pumps in many cases directly feed the excess water into the power plant.

An example is the plant Neurath, which is the second biggest coal power plant in Europe, delivering 4 gigawatts of power without use of surface water.