<\/p>\n
Elida Castillo is mayor of\u00a0the Coastal Bend town of Taft, which issued a disaster declaration April 21 to call attention to a looming water crisis. “Everyone is like, ‘What the heck is going on and what do we do?'” she says.<\/p>\n
Dylan Baddour\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n
If Corpus Christi becomes the first modern American city to\u00a0run out of water<\/a>, it would take many surrounding communities with it.<\/p>\n That’s why six cities and towns in the Coastal Bend region of Texas have issued disaster declarations in the last two weeks.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n National attention has been fastened on Corpus Christi, a city of 317,000, as it grapples with an acute and potentially disastrous water shortage. But Corpus doesn\u2019t just provide water to its own industries and residents. It supplies a seven-county region, including 20 other municipalities.<\/p>\n \u201cEveryone is like, \u2018What the heck is going on and what do we do?”’ said\u00a0Elida Castillo, mayor of Taft (population\u00a02,800), which issued a disaster declaration on April 21. \u201cI\u2019m just trying to figure out what we could do.\u201d<\/p>\n Elida Castillo is the mayor of the Coastal Bend town of Taft, which issued a disaster declaration April 21 to call attention to a looming water crisis. “Everyone is like, ‘What the heck is going on and what do we do?'” she says.<\/p>\n Dylan Baddour\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n Ingleside<\/a> and Aransas Pass, with a combined 19,000 residents, issued their own declarations a day later. The towns of\u00a0Three Rivers<\/a>, Orange Grove and Alice had done the same a week earlier.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n This report is published in partnership with Inside Climate News<\/a>, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment.\u00a0<\/p>\n Dylan Baddour<\/a> is an Austin-based reporter for ICN covering the energy sector and environmental justice.\u00a0Neena Satija<\/a> is an investigative journalist for National Public Radio\u2019s Texas Newsroom.\u00a0Emily Salazar<\/a> is director of digital content at KEDT in Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n \u201cThere should be some type of legislation that will assist us now, rather than in the future,\u201d said\u00a0Ingleside City Manager Brenton Lewis. \u201cAll these small cities that have declared disasters are looking at alternate water supplies.\u201d<\/p>\n The city of Alice, with a population of 17,000, declared a disaster on April 14. \u201cRegional water demand is exceeding available supply,\u201d the\u00a0declaration <\/a>states. \u201cContinued drought conditions threaten public health, safety and welfare, as well as essential public services.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Alice expects to fare better than other communities. In July, it held a ribbon-cutting for a groundwater desalination plant. The facility, which was a decade in the making, is owned and operated by an investor-backed water treatment company called Seven Seas. The plant extracts brackish water from below ground and forces it through membranes that filter out\u00a0salt, minerals and other impurities, a process called reverse osmosis.<\/p>\n \u201cThey have a profit margin,\u201d Alice City Manager Michael Esparza said of the company. \u201cWe are paying a private company to do something for us. It\u2019s no different than we do with a lot of things, although this one is pretty big because it’s our water.\u201d<\/p>\n Fifty miles away, the city of\u00a0Beeville declared a disaster<\/a> in October and issued $35 million<\/a> in municipal debt,\u00a0about $2,600 per resident, to fund its own emergency groundwater<\/a> desalination project.<\/p>\n Most local governments are reluctant or unable to shoulder the expense of reverse osmosis, the most common method for desalinating salt water, said\u00a0Kasy Stinson, a project developer for Seven Seas based in Austin.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know that the reality of the dire straits has really landed with everybody,\u201d said Stinson, who worked for a decade in the drinking water division of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.\u00a0<\/p>\n Castillo sees the situation the same way. She\u2019s watched the crisis build for years. Last year, she\u00a0traveled repeatedly to Austin to meet with state lawmakers as they crafted ambitious legislation meant to head off water deficits projected across Texas.\u00a0<\/p>\n But the $20 billion<\/a> plan put forth by lawmakers for a Texas Water Fund looks meager compared to the latest estimate of the state’s long-term water needs:\u00a0$174 billion, <\/a>according to the Texas Water Development Board.<\/p>\n Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, a giant plastics production facility operated by\u00a0ExxonMobil\u00a0and Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corp., uses more water than all 317,000 residents of Corpus Christi.<\/p>\n Dylan Baddour\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n Castillo\u00a0thinks lawmakers focused too much on developing new water sources and not enough on conserving existing supplies. She cited Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, a giant plastics plant operated by ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia Basic Industries Corp. The facility, located north of Corpus Christi and five miles from Taft,\u00a0began operation in 2022 and uses more water than all the residents of Corpus Christi combined.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Last week, Corpus Christi leaders announced plans to impose a mandatory 25% cut in water use, starting in September, on the plastics plant and 14 other large industrial users, including Occidental Chemical, Valero, Flint Hills and Lyondell Bassel.\u00a0<\/p>\n Castillo thinks emergency cuts should be instituted immediately.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re not taking this as seriously as they should be,\u201d she said of Corpus Christi officials. \u201cThere needs to be more pressure put on (Gov.) Greg Abbott.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n