Scrambling to keep water flowing to refineries, homes and businesses, the city has turned to what they\u2019re calling a \u201cdrought-resistant\u201d water source: drilling for groundwater. <\/p>\n
Eight city wells in rural Nueces County are now pulling about 8 million gallons of groundwater per day from the Evangeline Aquifer and spilling it into the Nueces River, which supplies the city\u2019s water treatment plant. Another 12 wells are under construction or being tested and two other groundwater projects are being planned.<\/p>\n
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A water well under construction on a field in Nueces County on Oct. 20, 2025. Brenda Baz\u00e1n for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n
Groundwater is being added to the city\u2019s supply as part of a \u201cdiversified water strategy,\u201d and the city\u2019s water supply is not currently maxed out or fully committed to existing users, said Ashley Marion, a spokesperson for the city\u2019s water department. <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, water experts say the city can\u2019t rely on groundwater indefinitely because large pumping projects can easily overwhelm aquifers, and they don\u2019t recharge fast enough. <\/p>\n
\u201cThink of it like a bank account. There\u2019s only so much in there,\u201d said Amy Bush, a hydrologist and former general manager of a groundwater conservation district. \u201cYou cannot keep taking out hundreds and putting in dimes.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some city officials are concerned for the region\u2019s future water supply. <\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I\u2019m terrified,\u201d said Rolando Barrera, who has served on the Corpus Christi City Council since 2018. \u201cI\u2019ve been called a fear mongerer and it\u2019s because I am really scared.\u201d <\/p>\n
Barrera, one of the most vocal supporters of desalination, is critical of other council members, mostly newly-elected, who voted against the project last year. <\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, my colleagues don\u2019t realize the severity of the situation, and they don\u2019t recognize that curtailment is imminent,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Sylvia Campos, a city council member who voted against desalination, said she isn\u2019t worried about the city\u2019s future water supply. She argues that tapping into groundwater and asking industrial users that are driving most of the area\u2019s water demand to conserve water and recycle wastewater are possible solutions.<\/p>\n
But propping up the city\u2019s water supply with wells could threaten the survival of rural Nueces County residents who depend on that same water. <\/p>\n
A group of farmers, gardeners and a retired refinery manager says their wells have dropped since the city started its drilling push and their water is becoming noticeably saltier. <\/p>\n
\u201cSeveral of us have lost pressure to our wells,\u201d said Daniel Brodhag, a 69-year-old retired machinist who lives down the road from the city\u2019s wells. \u201cThe water levels and the amount of pressure that the wells have now has dropped considerably.\u201d <\/p>\n
Brodhag said his well \u201cused to flow with pretty good pressure out of the top of the well, and now it just kind of trickles out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Statewide surface water scarcity![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-14.jpg\")
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A tractor works a field of grain in Driscoll on Oct. 20, 2025. Brenda Baz\u00e1n for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n
What\u2019s happening in Corpus Christi highlights a bigger problem across Texas: Surface water in rivers and reservoirs is getting more scarce and unreliable. Droughts are getting longer and deeper, driven by climate change. Meanwhile, the state estimates that its population will increase 73% by 2070<\/a>. <\/p>\n So groundwater is becoming the go-to solution for cities large and small.<\/p>\n San Antonio hired a company in 2017 to drill 18 water wells into the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in North Central Texas that now pump billions of gallons per year through a 142-mile pipeline to the growing city. In East Texas, a Dallas developer plans more than 40 high-capacity wells in Anderson, Houston and Henderson counties to send billions of gallons of water from that same aquifer to water-stressed areas of the state.<\/p>\n Parts of Texas that don\u2019t have a groundwater conservation district still operate under the \u201crule of capture,\u201d a doctrine from the early 1900s that says groundwater belongs to whoever owns the land above it \u2014 and they can pump as much as they want, regardless of impacts to neighbors. This leads to water disputes, especially when a big user like a city comes in and pumps large amounts of water. <\/p>\n Kelly Harlan looks at the Nueces River from Hazel Bazemore-Calallen Park on Oct. 20, 2025. Brenda Baz\u00e1n for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n \u201cPoor planning on [the city\u2019s] part does not constitute an emergency on us,\u201d said Kelly Harlan, a pilot whose family has farmed in the area for generations. <\/p>\n Alarmed well owners around Corpus Christi are now pushing for the state to establish a groundwater conservation district in Nueces County to regulate pumping by the city. <\/p>\n About 72% of Texas aquifers are overseen<\/a> by groundwater conservation districts, created to manage how much groundwater can be pumped from aquifers in attempts to slow depletion \u2014 unlike rivers, groundwater replenishes slowly. <\/p>\n A district could deny new drilling permits orlimit how much water landowners can pump by putting a cap on all well owners, said Robert Mace, a water expert and executive director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University. But districts can\u2019t impose limits on a specific well owner or shut them off entirely.<\/p>\n \u201cCould they completely shut Corpus Christi off from producing water in Nueces County? Probably not. Districts are required to treat people equally,\u201d Mace said.<\/p>\n What led to the water crisis? A tank from Celanese Plastics towers over the horizon on the Nueces River. Brenda Baz\u00e1n for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n For decades, Corpus Christi has supplied water not only to residents and small businesses, but increasingly to heavy industry ringing Corpus Christi Bay. Since 2015, city leaders have aggressively recruited petrochemical plants, steel mills, and liquefied natural gas export facilities with assurances that water would be available. <\/p>\n While the city\u2019s population grew by just 12,000 people over the past decade<\/a>, to about 318,000 residents, overall water demand continued to climb, driven largely by industrial use, according to Jim Klein, president of the local Sierra Club and a former city council member.<\/p>\n Today some of the city\u2019s biggest water users include crude oil refineries like Valero Refining and Flint Hills Resources, as well as petrochemical companies like LyondellBasell. <\/p>\n \u201cThe water has always been for industry,\u201d Klein said. \u201cNot even just for existing industries, but to lure more heavy water users into the area.\u201d<\/p>\n He said that shift accelerated after a pivotal federal policy change. In 2015, the Obama administration lifted the U.S. ban<\/a> on crude oil and natural gas exports. While the Port of Corpus Christi already had export terminals, lifting the ban triggered a building boom that made the port the nation\u2019s top exporter of oil and gas<\/a>. <\/p>\n Klein said that moment fundamentally reshaped the local economy and the city\u2019s water planning as it promised more and more water to new industrial users.<\/p>\n Against that backdrop, Corpus Christi proposed its most ambitious water project yet: a seawater desalination plant. <\/p>\n The project was promoted as a \u201cdrought-proof\u201d supply that would serve both residents and industry while securing the city\u2019s long-term water future. The plant was designed to produce roughly 30 million gallons of water per day by 2028. Most of the water would have gone to industrial users, according to the Texas Chemistry Council<\/a>, with enough to also supply 100,000 households. <\/p>\n In 2017, Margie C. Rose, a former city manager, wrote a letter to ExxonMobil promising massive volumes<\/a> of water: \u201cwe feel we have sufficient water supplies to meet your needs today and into the foreseeable future.\u201d ExxonMobil\u2019s plastics plant, completed in 2022, can use about 25 million gallons per day \u2014 nearly equal to what the desalination plant was expected to produce. <\/p>\n Residential customers, meanwhile, were facing water restrictions with each severe drought. Today those include: banned from watering lawns and having to wash cars and boats with a 5-gallon bucket \u2014under threat of fines up to $500 per violation per day.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I boil my eggs, I don\u2019t throw out my water, I leave my water on the stove so that it\u2019ll cool down, and I use that to water my plants,\u201d said Isabel Araiza, who co-founded the group For the Greater Good in 2016 advocating against the desalination plant. <\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t water our lawn,\u201d Araiza added. \u201cWe try to use as little water as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Over time, the desalination project became a flashpoint.<\/p>\n The cost alarmed many locals as estimates ballooned, most recently from nearly $760 million to more than $1.2 billion. And environmental groups raised alarms about the plant discharging super-salty brine into the bay that could increase salinity levels and create \u201cdead zones\u201d potentially harming the sensitive, mostly enclosed coastal ecosystem.<\/p>\n By 2022, a newly-elected city council was less willing to back the project without studies on its potential environmental impacts and clear plans for how to pay for it.<\/p>\n In a pivotal vote last year<\/a>, council members killed the desalination plan, which had already secured permits and some state funding through the Texas Water Development Board.<\/p>\n Bob Paulison, executive director of Coastal Bend Industry Association, said that move upended the area\u2019s long-term water planning.<\/p>\n \u201cWe now need to find another 30 million gallons a day of supply and there are very few projects that can deliver that scale in the needed time frame,\u201d Paulison said.<\/p>\n Plans to build a separate regional desalination plant, led by the Nueces River Authority, remains years away, with a target date of December 2029 at the earliest. <\/p>\n Will a groundwater district help? A cluster of wells discharge water into the Nueces River. Brenda Baz\u00e1n for The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n Down County Road 73 in Nueces County, where one of the city\u2019s two well fields is pumping about 8 million gallons of water per day into the Nueces River, the neighboring landowners say they\u2019re already seeing changes to their wells. <\/p>\n Drawing large volumes of water from the aquifer reduces groundwater pressure in the area, which weakens many nearby wells and causes water levels to fall. Well owners say they have to install pumps to access water that previously rose naturally to the surface. <\/p>\n One nearby city well was recently tested by the group trying to form a groundwater district and had dissolved solids \u2014 which include minerals like calcium, chloride or sulfates \u2014 measured at 3,412 parts per million, levels high enough to damage crops and household plumbing.<\/p>\n When this salty groundwater is discharged into the Nueces River it can raise salinity levels and make the river more brackish. <\/p>\n The city wells are \u201cpulling water out faster than [the aquifer] can recharge,\u201d said Harlan, the pilot who lives in the area and comes from a long line of farmers. <\/p>\n Harlan is leading a grassroots push to create Nueces County\u2019s first-ever groundwater conservation district, which could oversee pumping. Residents petitioned the state\u2019s environmental agency, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, in September, and if the agency approves a new district, local residents would still need to vote on creating the district.<\/p>\n But water experts say the odds are long.<\/p>\n TCEQ rarely approves districts through citizen petitions. Most are created by the Legislature, which meets every other year and won\u2019t be in session again until 2027.<\/p>\n Groundwater conservation districts can regulate how much water can be pumped from wells within its boundaries, said Amy Bush, the former general manager of a groundwater conservation district. They can also require wells to be a certain distance from each other and property lines, but they can\u2019t block a landowner from drilling a well as long as they follow the district\u2019s rules. <\/p>\n The city is now trying to put its two well fields under the oversight of a special district, controlled by the city, that manages and protects water injected into the aquifer for storage and later use. That district can set pumping limits rather than a groundwater conservation district. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is the city\u2019s effort to circumvent our efforts to control [pumping]. They don\u2019t want to be regulated by any other entity. They want to regulate themselves,\u201d said Scott Barraza, who was born and raised in Corpus Christi and now lives about five miles from one of the city\u2019s well fields. <\/p>\n He and others have asked the TCEQ to look into the legitimacy of the city\u2019s actions. A hearing is scheduled for February. <\/p>\n Barraza, 49, relies on the aquifer to provide all of the water for his 20-acre property, where he and his wife and daughter keep three goats, a horse and five dogs. The city\u2019s new wells worry him because if the aquifer drops too much or becomes too salty, his only option is hauling water by truck.<\/p>\n \u201cI am on a well,\u201d Barraza said. \u201cIf it goes dry, I have no water.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIf there\u2019s no water on my land,\u201d he added, \u201cmy land is worth nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Disclosure: Meadows Center for Water & the Environment and Valero have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NUECES COUNTY \u2014 Texas\u2019 eighth-largest city has seen the water crisis coming for years, and now it\u2019s here:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,451,2327,5790,287,293,2646],"class_list":{"0":"post-119802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news","11":"tag-energy","12":"tag-environment","13":"tag-nueces-county","14":"tag-politics","15":"tag-texas-legislature","16":"tag-water-supply"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Kelly](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-36.jpg\")
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