“Day Zero” sounds like something out of an apocalyptic horror film, but in truth, it’s the day a city runs out of water. This year, a major Texas city came uncomfortably close to it.
Today marks The Value of Water Campaign’s annual Imagine a Day Without Water event. It’s an invitation to picture life on Day Zero and to recognize the value of reliable water not only to life, but to civilization as we know it.
This was a very real problem facing Corpus Christi and other cities in Texas’ Coastal Bend earlier this year. Prolonged, severe drought conditions drained the region’s reservoirs below 8% of capacity. Timelines emerged projecting that Corpus Christi could declare a water emergency this year.
Summertime floods have pushed this emergency back to 2028, The Texas Tribune reported, providing a reprieve, though not a solution. Had drought conditions persisted, the story would have been very different. Corpus Christi could have been the first major American city to run out of water.
This catastrophe would have been felt beyond the city limits: diesel, jet fuel and gasoline production from refineries in the region would have been affected, sending ripple effects to gas pumps across Texas and the nation.
The quiet premise of Texas’ water policy is to avoid Day Zero for a drought-prone and growing state. Nearly 30 years ago, the Legislature adopted a long-term water planning policy designed to identify shortages before communities run out of water. Peering into the future, this process is meant to recommend projects and strategies like desalination plants or reservoirs to ensure a steady supply.
Both the state’s water plans, and the planning process, were put to the test when a real water crisis emerged in the Coastal Bend. Since the Legislature created this process, five state water plans have looked ahead to this decade. This raises a simple question: Did these water plans ever see this water crisis coming?
Texas 2036’s analysis in The State Water Plan and the Coastal Bend Water Crisis found that they did not. In fact, some plans projected that the region would have a water supply surplus during the 2020s. Where local shortages were projected, they were largely attributable to groundwater or treatment plant capacity. More alarmingly, each set of plans consistently repeated that “no shortages are projected” for Corpus Christi and other cities at the heart of the crisis.
The very plans meant to warn these cities of a potential Day Zero in the 2020s failed to do so. If the state’s plans missed a crisis this large in the Coastal Bend, Texans everywhere should ask what they might be missing closer to home.
These findings do not suggest that the state’s water plans are bad or should be scrapped. Rather, the shortcomings of past plans offer clear lessons for strengthening those of the future.
When the Legislature reconvenes in January, it will have an opportunity to revisit Texas’ nearly 30-year-old planning processes. The reforms should start with the data. Future plans must be informed by the best, most accurate and most current data to better project when future shortages may arrive. The state’s water availability models prepared by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality should be updated to account for changing hydrological conditions, including worsening droughts.
For those regions and cities where shortages — or Day Zero — are anticipated, plans should track the state’s progress toward building and delivering the water supply projects needed. Among other recommendations in Texas 2036’s report, these plans should also stress-test for droughts worse than what Texas has endured before.
Texans should take a moment today to imagine a day without water. Corpus Christi came dangerously close to Day Zero, and the pain would have been felt across Texas. While the rains bought us time, the Legislature has the opportunity to re-tool our water plans and planning process to prevent near-misses like this from happening again.
Jeremy Mazur is the director of infrastructure and natural resources policy at Texas 2036.