Councilman flags \u2018gray area\u2019 that could benefit heavy users.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 New questions are emerging about how City of Corpus Christi enforces its drought contingency plan and whether large industrial water users are getting a pass when supplies tighten.<\/p>\n
City Councilman Gil Hernandez says parts of the plan are unclear, particularly language dealing with exemptions for high-volume users.<\/p>\n
Hernandez told 3News that one section appears to exempt those users from drought stages one through three, phases that typically trigger conservation measures.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt specifically says they are exempt from stages 1, 2 and 3,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cNow, we\u2019ve never put a surcharge in those stages\u2026 so we haven\u2019t done any curtailment.\u201d<\/p>\n
But another section of the plan raises a different question, what happens during a declared water emergency.<\/p>\n
Hernandez points to wording that references \u201cnon-exempt large volume water users,\u201d arguing it creates a gray area that could impact enforcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat creates enough gray area to say whether they are exempt from paying a surcharge during a water emergency or are they not,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
City Manager Peter Zanoni acknowledged the confusion and said the city is working to tighten the language.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be working with the councilman to make sure that our customers, our Council, and our customers clearly understand\u2026 surcharges, curtailment, baseline use, that type of thing,\u201d Zanoni said.<\/p>\n
Despite the ambiguity, Zanoni stressed that major industrial users will not be spared if drought conditions worsen.<\/p>\n
He says the city is counting on those users to make significant cuts, potentially saving more than 15 million gallons of water per day during a level one water emergency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are the ones who have not necessarily reduced consumption,\u201d Zanoni said.<\/p>\n
City leaders say a 25% reduction from large industrial users could be critical to maintaining water service across Corpus Christi as drought conditions persist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Councilman flags \u2018gray area\u2019 that could benefit heavy users. CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 New questions are emerging about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-263549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263549","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=263549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}