Corpus Christi city council considers desal alternative options<\/a><\/p>\nLast year, the oil and gas industry made up 38% of Texas’ gross domestic product (GDP) and contributed $27 billion in tax revenue to the state. Locally, the industry includes one of the nation\u2019s largest petroleum ports and employs about 12,000 workers locally, but it relies heavily on water for refining, drilling and production. Those jobs typically pay $120,000 or more, or three times the area\u2019s median income.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it comes to water, these issues are some of the most serious that we\u2019ve faced,\u201d said Todd Staples, president of the Texas Oil and Gas Association. \u201cBoth homeowners and businesses alike depend on a reliable water supply. The fact that these needs might not be met could have extreme consequences for the operations at these facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Railroad Commissioner Jim Wright, one of the state\u2019s top oil and gas regulators, said water shortages would ripple beyond industry, threatening exports and employment across the region.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf industry doesn\u2019t have the ability to access water, they\u2019re going to have to shut down, which means what happens? Our exports will suffer from that. Our jobs will suffer as a community,\u201d Wright said. \u201cWater is certainly needed for any community to survive, but industry is also needed because we have to have the jobs, and we got to be able to make sure we have an economy that provides a comfortable living for people.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
Wright criticized the lack of long-term planning, saying the state should have acted years earlier to prepare for worsening drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe should have been looking at this 10 years ago,\u201d Wright said. \u201cI think we\u2019re on a very thin line today. By the end of this year, if things keep on the trajectory that we\u2019re seeing, you\u2019re going to see more restrictions come. I really don\u2019t want to see restrictions come as far as our industry is concerned, because then we\u2019ll start losing jobs. We’ll start losing confidence that we can keep our jobs safe here. I think it’s going to take a long time to repair that harm that may cause.\u201d<\/p>\n
City leaders say they are pursuing several long-term water solutions, but they warn that without significant rainfall, curtailments could still be unavoidable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City officials say water restrictions may begin in 2026 as drought persists. Oil and gas leaders warn shortages…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-16375","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\/16375","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=16375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}