Residents in Odem questioned Corpus Christi Water leaders during a town hall, raising concerns about supply, planning and impacts across San Patricio County.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 Water concerns took center stage Wednesday night as residents gathered at the Odem Community Center for a town hall meeting hosted by Corpus Christi Water.<\/p>\n
The meeting brought together Corpus Christi Water leaders, local officials and residents from across San Patricio County, one of seven counties served by the regional water system. Much of the discussion focused on the proposed Evangeline Groundwater Project and what could happen if water supply no longer meets demand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of fear out here, you know, and people are asking a lot of questions that I don\u2019t really have the answers to,\u201d Odem Mayor David Maldonado said.<\/p>\n
Residents used the meeting\u2019s question-and-answer portion to raise concerns about the region\u2019s ongoing water challenges and how future projects could affect them.<\/p>\n
Earl Fontenot, who has owned a well near Sinton for 20 years, said he is now dealing with it going dry for the first time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s dry. I mean, I\u2019m hauling water from town, you know. I\u2019m looking for somebody to come over there, do whatever they got to do,\u201d Fontenot said.<\/p>\n
Fontenot said navigating these water issues is new for him.<\/p>\n
\u201cGrew up in the city where you just turn the tap on, you know, and pay the bill at the end of the month and I didn\u2019t have to maintain a level, so I\u2019m not really knowledgeable about that,\u201d Fontenot said.<\/p>\n
Corpus Christi Water officials said the goal of the meeting was to help residents better understand the situation and highlight potential solutions, including the Evangeline Groundwater Project.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Evangeline Project, at full completion, will provide 24 million gallons a day of groundwater,\u201d said Nick Winkelmann, Chief Operating Officer for Corpus Christi Water.<\/p>\n
Winkelmann added that the city is offering assistance to well owners near the Evangeline well field.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you are a well-owner within the vicinity within any of our well fields within Nueces or San Patricio County, we are willing to come out and take baseline water level data and take water quality samples,\u201d Winkelmann said.<\/p>\n
Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni said the project is moving forward following City Council approval to begin the design process.<\/p>\n
\u201cMoving forward with the design. It\u2019ll be 60 percent complete by the end of this month. On Friday, some of the piping that\u2019ll be used in the entire project is coming on site. Another few weeks after that, the construction will begin,\u201d Zanoni said.<\/p>\n
However, officials noted that permitting for the project is still ongoing.<\/p>\n
Maldonado said Odem relies on water provided through the San Patricio County Water Control and Improvement District, which sources its supply from Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe get it through the San Patricio Water District, but they get it from Corpus, and so as long as the Corpus is doing the things that they need to do to be able to provide water for their customers, which includes the city of Odem, I think we\u2019re gonna be OK,\u201d Maldonado said.<\/p>\n
As for the Evangeline project, the next step will be for an administrative judge to determine whether remaining protests have standing. If granted, a contested case hearing, similar to a trial, is expected to take place at the end of April.<\/p>\n
This is a developing story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Residents in Odem questioned Corpus Christi Water leaders during a town hall, raising concerns about supply, planning and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-220935","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\/220935","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=220935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}