{"id":196824,"date":"2026-03-09T16:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T16:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/196824\/"},"modified":"2026-03-09T16:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T16:01:08","slug":"crisis-hits-by-november-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/196824\/","title":{"rendered":"Crisis Hits By November 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

The City of Corpus Christi is rapidly depleting<\/a> its water supply and is expected<\/a> to declare a \u201cwater emergency\u201d by November. Former officials are concerned<\/a> this may necessitate evacuations or other extreme measures.<\/p>\n

Don Roach is a former<\/a> assistant general manager of the San Patricio Municipal Water District, which serves the Corpus Christi area, according to The Texas Tribune. He retired from the position in 2014.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis waiting disaster is under the radar for the rest of the state,\u201d Roach said<\/a>. \u201cWe hear nothing from the Texas politicians about the seriousness of the situation or any state plan to mitigate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Corpus Christi predicts<\/a> its well water and Eastern Supplies will hold steady. However, its Western Supplies \u2013 Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon Reservoir \u2013 fell<\/a> to 10% combined capacity in January, according to the city. <\/p>\n

At the current rate, officials expect to run dry<\/a> by June 2027, leaving the city short of\u00a0millions of gallons of water per day.<\/p>\n

The city requires<\/a> a \u201cLevel 1\u201d water emergency at least 180 days before this point; officials expect to reach it in November. Then, plans would aim to reduce<\/a>\u00a0water demand by 25%, in part by raising prices.<\/p>\n

If levels continue falling to a \u201cLevel 2\u201d water emergency, city contingency plans dictate reducing demand \u2013 again<\/a> \u2013 to 50%.<\/p>\n

Depletion of the area\u2019s reservoirs would cause economic stress, including \u201ccontrolled depression,\u201d \u201cmass unemployment,\u201d and \u201cindustrial total shutdown,\u201d Roach warned<\/a>, according to the Tribune.<\/p>\n

The shortage could reportedly require<\/a> local businesses to truck in water, and require state-funded temporary pipelines or desalination barges to \u201cprevent a total evacuation of the city.\u201d <\/p>\n

Other former officials echoed these concerns.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sean Strawbridge is the former CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, the top port in America for crude oil exports. He warned<\/a> the San Antonio Express-News about the economic implications of such a water shortage.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe impacts are going to be felt tremendously through the state, if not internationally,\u201d he said. \u201cThis should be no surprise to anybody. We were talking about this over a decade ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

In February, the Corpus Christi City Council approved<\/a> a $175 million project for a brackish water desalination plant to help make up for some of the lost water. It will initially deliver 3.91 million gallons per day after 11 months, and deliver 21.3 million gallons per day after two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is an innovative approach to increasing our water supply in an expedited manner,\u201d said<\/a> Corpus Christi Water Chief Operating Officer Nicholas Winkelmann at the time. \u201cThis project supports our strategy to diversify and strengthen the regional water supply.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lake Corpus Christi has fallen<\/a> to 9.9% of its total capacity, city officials announced last week, according to KIII. This marks the reservoir\u2019s lowest level since it was created in 1958.<\/p>\n

In Central Texas, Pflugerville Mayor Doug Weiss declared<\/a> a disaster due to an emergency water shortage, citing \u201cfailure of a pipeline feeding raw water to Lake Pflugerville.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLake levels are at a critical point, and we must act now to ensure we can continue providing essential services,\u201d Weiss said<\/a> at the time. \u201cCity staff is working around the clock to stabilize the situation, but conservation by our community is critical.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As of March 6, Pflugerville officials expected<\/a> crews to finish a temporary bypass waterline as early as March 10. They directed residents to the city\u2019s website<\/a> for further updates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The City of Corpus Christi is rapidly depleting its water supply and is expected to declare a \u201cwater…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196825,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156,77831,23409,16621,77832,77833],"class_list":["post-196824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-corpus-christi-run-dry-2027","tag-corpus-christi-water-crisis","tag-corpus-christi-water-emergency","tag-lake-corpus-christi-low-levels","tag-texas-water-shortage-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196824","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=196824"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196824\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196824"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196824"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196824"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}