The meeting followed Tuesday\u2019s vote by the Corpus Christi City Council to move forward with purchasing groundwater rights in Nueces County for $28 million dollars.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Concerns over the region\u2019s water future brought dozens of residents to a packed meeting Thursday evening at the Robstown Community Hall, where the Nueces Groundwater Conservation District hosted a community town hall to discuss ongoing groundwater issues and the City of Corpus Christi\u2019s recent move to secure new groundwater rights.<\/p>\n
The meeting followed Tuesday\u2019s vote by the Corpus Christi City Council to move forward with purchasing groundwater rights in Nueces County for $28 million dollars. The city plans to acquire those rights from the Ed Rachal Foundation.<\/p>\n
Residents at the town hall said they are eager for clarity and accountability.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concern of our water situation, it’s very critical,\u201d said David Ainsworth, a Robstown native and longtime resident who attended the meeting to voice his concerns.<\/p>\n
Attendees questioned how the city will monitor new wells and what happens if privately owned wells run dry. Many said they feared the impact of increased pumping on the area\u2019s aquifer.<\/p>\n
Scott Barraza, a member of the district\u2019s organizing committee, said the worries are widespread.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is concerned about overpumping the aquifer. They’re concerned with their wells going dry, and it’s nothing about wanting to stop the city from pumping because the city obviously has a need for the water. They have a right to the water. What we want them to do is to take their fair share,” Barraza said. “Well owners, they’ve lost pressure, some of the wells have gone dry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Also in attendance were former Corpus Christi Water COO Drew Molly and Councilmember Gil Hernandez, who said he hopes to help bridge conversations between city officials and concerned county residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we need to get is from our hydrologist in Tara, a guy named Steve Young, to give us exactly what we can get from it for a sustainable period of time,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cSo we need to understand what can we get, how long can we get it without affecting anybody around us. I don’t think we have that yet, you know, in writing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hernandez added that next week\u2019s City Council meeting agenda includes an item regarding plans to desalinate 24 million gallons of groundwater. When asked about residents\u2019 frustrations that the city did not communicate its groundwater-rights purchase earlier in the process, he acknowledged the concern, saying city officials \u201ccould\u2019ve done a better job of giving out information.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leaders with the groundwater district also announced they are forming a new nonprofit organization, Friends of Nueces Groundwater Conservation District, to help support the district through fundraising for items such as legal fees.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The meeting followed Tuesday\u2019s vote by the Corpus Christi City Council to move forward with purchasing groundwater rights…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-162777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162777","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=162777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}