Curtailment clock ticking in Corpus Christi<\/a><\/p>\nThe exemption fee was created as a conservation measure during drought conditions and applies to high-volume industrial water users. Instead of paying escalating drought rates, qualifying businesses pay an upfront fee that goes into a city-managed fund earmarked for future water projects.<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Carolyn Vaughn, who helped bring the item back before council, said the goal was not to eliminate the fee, but to better explain how the program works \u2014 both to the public and to fellow council members.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019re giving industry a break here,\u201d Vaughn said. \u201cI think they are putting money into this fund to use for water things later on, water solutions down the road. I don\u2019t know how much we got in there, but it\u2019s a good amount, so I think it\u2019s important that the public sees that they are contributing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Councilwoman Kaylynn Paxton estimated the fund currently holds about $25 million, money she says could be used for long-term water infrastructure projects, including desalination.<\/p>\n
Paxton also addressed concerns from residents who question why industrial users are allowed to pay a fixed drought fee while residential water rates continue to rise during dry conditions.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is trying to do their part to conserve water, and so I understand the sentiment, \u2018If they can do it, then why can\u2019t I do it?\u2019\u201d Paxton said. \u201cSo if we were to change this, we would have to give our partners five years\u2019 notice so they can build that into their operations plan. That puts us at this point where whether you approve it today or sunset it, you\u2019re five years away from seeing a change.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of Tuesday evening, council members had only discussed the issue and had not taken formal action. The matter could return for a future vote after additional public discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City leaders revisited drought exemption fees for industrial water users Tuesday, explaining how the program works and why…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140817,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-140816","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"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140816","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=140816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140816\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}