Corpus Christi city leaders say key water projects are moving forward as reservoir levels remain critically low, with new timelines, contracts and conservation plans outlined during Thursday’s weekly update.<\/p>\n
On Thursday’s weekly water briefing, City Manager Peter Zanoni said the city’s primary reservoirs continue to struggle. Choke Canyon dropped to 7.6% capacity, while Lake Corpus Christi held at 8.5%. In contrast, Lake Texana improved to about 54.8% after recent rainfall.<\/p>\n
“We know we have two reservoirs in the west and one in the east,” Zanoni said, noting the city is closely tracking all sources as drought conditions persist.<\/p>\n
To boost supply, the city reported progress on its groundwater program in Nueces County. Adding that 14 are now in place, producing about 14 million gallons per day\u2014roughly two-thirds of the potential capacity due to water-quality restrictions.<\/p>\n
“We’re only producing about 14 million gallons a day\u2026 about 7 million gallons less than what we could be producing,” Zanoni said, adding the city plans to seek flexibility from regulators.<\/p>\n
A major milestone was also announced for a future project for the Nueces Groundwater Program. The city signed a contract with Aqualia to design and build a modular brackish RO system. The $175 million project is expected to begin producing water within 11 to 12 months.<\/p>\n
“That project will be done in total in about 24 months, but we’ll begin to see it\u2026 in operation in about 11 to 12 months,” Zanoni said. “Producing 4 million gallons on the first phase,” Zanoni added.<\/p>\n
In neighboring San Patricio County, a separate groundwater project is advancing quickly, reaching 60% design in just two months. Construction is already beginning, but pending legal challenges could impact permitting decisions later this month.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a planned vote on the Inner Harbor desalination project has been pushed back to June 2 due to delays in environmental modeling. Officials say the extra time is needed to complete the analysis of potential impacts to the bay.<\/p>\n
The city is also preparing for the possibility of a Level 1 water emergency. A workshop next week will outline potential restrictions, including water use reductions, fees, and limits on outdoor watering.<\/p>\n
Despite conservation concerns, most public pools will remain open this summer, while splash pads will operate on reduced schedules.<\/p>\n
“We do care about our families\u2026 the decision to keep pools and splash pads open is really a family-based one,” Zanoni said.<\/p>\n
City leaders say more community meetings are planned to keep residents informed as conditions evolve and major water decisions approach later this month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi city leaders say key water projects are moving forward as reservoir levels remain critically low, with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242652,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[74853,155,157,156,9871,5790,410,95639],"class_list":{"0":"post-253158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-city-manager-peter-zanoni","9":"tag-corpus-christi","10":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","11":"tag-corpus-christi-news","12":"tag-lake-corpus-christi","13":"tag-nueces-county","14":"tag-water","15":"tag-water-decisions"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253158","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=253158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}