Council recently delayed a desalination plant vote until September; Mayor also provides update on how recent rain is impacting the crisis.
DALLAS — The city of Corpus Christi is facing a major water crisis. And according to the mayor, residents are facing a major crisis of confidence in leadership.
In June, council members delayed another vote to approve a billion dollar desalination plant that would add 30 million gallons of water into the system per day. That was the second time council rejected or delayed the project, known as the Inner Harbor desalination plant, in the past year. Council will not address Inner Harbor again until September.
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Corpus Christi Mayor Paulette Guajardo says residents are paying attention to the delays, so we asked her if she thinks the issue will cost some incumbent council members their jobs in the fall.
“I think that’s probably fair to say,” she told us on Inside Texas Politics. “It’s going to be a number one issue because of our situation. And that’s months away. Early voting starts end of October, mid to end of October. So, water is going to be a very big topic in this next election.”
Corpus Christi needs water, and a lot of it. The city’s main reservoirs are running dry because of an ongoing drought, with Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon Reservoir having dipped below 10% of their capacity.
The mayor says recent rains have eased the pressure a bit, pushing a stage 1 water emergency out to the end of 2027. When that emergency kicks in, Corpus Christi would be only 180 days away from not being able to meet demand. It would also require residents and businesses to cut their water usage by 25%.
But that doesn’t lessen the urgency.
Guajardo and some council members support the Inner Harbor project, arguing that it is shovel ready, funded, and fully permitted. Even if approved in September of this year, it wouldn’t start turning seawater into drinkable water until 2029.
Critics, though, have complained about cost overruns and have raised several concerns about the environmental impact caused by the plant. They delayed June’s vote, asking for what’s known as a far-field study to examine the potential impacts of the plant’s output. In this case, they’re worried about the plant’s brine discharge and how it would affect the ecosystem.
The mayor, though, says the project has received vigorous environmental oversight from the state of Texas and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
“We have data that proves that it is not [going to harm the ecosystem]. We have approval from the EPA. That’s like the Pope saying I’m going to baptize you. You can’t get better than that,” the mayor argued.
Corpus Christi uses between 130 to 150 million gallons of water per day, so the desal plant would only be part of the solution. The city is also drilling new groundwater wells and bringing other water projects online, including pipelines and a brackish water desalination plant.
Mayor Guajardo, though, argues that the Inner Harbor desal plant is the linchpin to the diversification of the city’s – and the region’s – water supply.
“We are the regional water producers. So, this isn’t just about Corpus Christi. This is about multiple counties, seven counties that we provide water to, or about 600,000 people,” she explained.
The next vote on the Inner Harbor Desalination Plant is scheduled for Sept. 1, 2026.