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Lake Corpus Christi at 11.8% capacity seen from a portable boat ramp, the only operational ramp of six in the state park, on Oct. 20, 2025.<\/p>\n
Brenda Baz\u00e1n\/For The Texas Tribune<\/p>\n
Five straight years of record heat, sporadic rainfall and divided leadership has Corpus Christi in danger of becoming the first U.S. city to run short of water.<\/p>\n
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Only rain \u2014 lots of it \u2014 can keep the coastal city from that grim fate.<\/p>\n
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Accessible sources of short-term water, including newly drilled\u00a0wells<\/a>, have already been tapped. A controversial desalination plant with the ability to filter seawater \u2014\u00a0rejected last year<\/a>\u00a0over cost and environmental concerns \u2014 is back on the table but years away from producing. Building a new lake-size reservoir is another option, but that would take even longer.<\/p>\n Corpus Christi is bracing for demand to exceed water supplies\u00a0by next summer, leaving\u00a0<\/a>far too little time to dodge a crisis by building new infrastructure, said Kenneth Dees, a water resources engineer based in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n At this point, he said, \u201cthe only thing that you could do is stop using water.\u201d<\/p>\n City leaders are left searching for ways to delay, not avoid, the looming emergency through conservation efforts, such as mandatory water restrictions and higher fees for exceeding limits.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Mayor Paulette Guajardo said preparing for the next stage of the water emergency has been a difficult balancing act of thinking long-term for the city, collaborating with a divided council and maintaining trust with the community.<\/p>\n \u201cWater security affects everything \u2014 growth, public safety, jobs, industry, housing \u2014 all of it, and it all weighs on me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Residents have expressed growing frustration with the city\u2019s leaders, noting delayed decisions on setting emergency water restrictions and how to enforce them. Council members also will debate next week whether to move forward on building a desalination plant that they rejected nine months ago.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s still time for you guys to turn things around, to work together, as hard as that may seem, and to come up with some good solutions for we the people because right now, you\u2019re failing at the task,\u201d resident Susy Saldana told the City Council earlier this month.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Guajardo said \u201cpeople are looking for certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to know their leadership and elected officials are working together to make thoughtful, decisive decisions that move our community forward,\u201d Guajardo continued. \u201cWhile there have been differing perspectives on council, I believe it\u2019s important that we remain focused on finding common ground and delivering long-term solutions for our residents.\u201d<\/p>\n Ginny Cross, vice president of advocacy for United Corpus Christi Chamber of Commerce, said the city\u2019s business community is on edge, waiting for city leaders to set a game plan. \u201cThey have to finalize the drought restrictions, and there\u2019s a lot of unwillingness to make a concrete plan,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Cross said businesses, worried restrictions could freeze the local economy, want to prepare for mandatory water limits that city leaders have been debating for nearly half a year.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody\u2019s going to be impacted in ways that we are just beginning to imagine,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Enacting ordinances and policies restricting water use are among the city\u2019s few remaining tools to slow the looming emergency, said Dees, who has 40 years of experience consulting about water infrastructure projects across the state. \u201cThe only thing they can do involves a gavel because at this point, they can\u2019t do anything with a shovel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Residents and businesses have already been living under\u00a0water restrictions since 2024<\/a>\u00a0as two main reservoirs\u00a0dwindled to puddles<\/a>. Homeowners have reduced their water use by about 25% in the last couple months, largely by\u00a0limiting car washing and outdoor watering<\/a>. All will be asked to cut back even more if the next crisis point arrives, as projected,\u00a0in December<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 though recent rains could push that tipping point into 2027.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hope for rain but in the meantime, I believe they really do have to take drastic action,\u201d Dees said of Corpus Christi\u2019s leaders. \u201cThey\u2019re going to have to curtail usage because that\u2019s the only thing they can do right now.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Jarrod Reynolds, a water resources engineer in Hood County who focuses on underground projects, said building water infrastructure is a slow process that can sometimes take decades.<\/p>\n \u201cWith time you can build stuff \u2014 you can drill wells, you can do desalination, you can do pipeline projects \u2014 but every single one of those takes years,\u201d said Reynolds, who works on projects statewide.<\/p>\n Next Tuesday, the City Council is expected to vote on how to enforce 25% mandatory cuts in water use if the city declares a Level 1 emergency \u2014 the point when Corpus Christi is six months away from falling short of meeting demand. Oil refineries and petrochemical plants, among the largest water users in the region, would be asked to conserve at the same 25% rate as residents and local businesses.<\/p>\n Corpus Christi is home to the Port of Corpus Chisti and one of the nation\u2019s largest industrial corridors, including crude oil refineries such as Valero Refining and Flint Hills Resources. Together, roughly 20 large industrial companies make up around 60% of the city\u2019s water demand, local officials say.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Complicating conservation efforts is a drought surcharge exemption program that City Manager Peter Zanoni has called an insurance program. Around a dozen industrial companies opted to pay an additional fee to their water bill \u2014 31 cents for every 1,000 gallons \u2014 to avoid additional fees during a water crisis.<\/p>\n Isabel Araiza, co-founder of For the Greater Good, a group that opposes a desalination plant that would discharge salty brine into the Corpus Christi Bay, said the city isn\u2019t out of options. \u201cIt\u2019s just not willing to entertain all the options,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Despite industry being the largest consumer, city conservation measures have largely targeted residents \u2014 including appeals for shorter showers and turning off faucets while brushing teeth. Araiza said restricting industry\u2019s water usage \u201cis an obvious solution, but that\u2019s not something entertained at all.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRage is not a strong enough word to capture how I feel,\u201d Araiza said. \u201cIt blows my mind that we\u2019re more concerned with industry\u2019s profits and single-use plastics and jet fuel than centering the needs of the community and environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Discussions among Corpus Christi leaders in the past few months have mostly fallen into two buckets: greenlighting efforts to streamline short-term water supplies, such as\u00a0scrambling to drill<\/a>\u00a0more than a dozen wells, and preparing for\u00a0mandatory limits and higher surcharges<\/a>.<\/p>\n The stakes are even higher because Corpus Christi\u2019s water challenges have a large ripple effect. In addition to the city\u2019s businesses and 318,000 residents, its water system serves more than 200,000 other customers across seven counties. The cities of Alice, Beeville and Mathis are wholesale customers of the city\u2019s water and are also hurrying to\u00a0drill their way out of a crisis<\/a>.<\/p>\n Nick Winkelmann, chief operating officer at Corpus Christi Water, said the city has identified wells and other short-term sources that \u201ccertainly helped buy us some time\u201d while other efforts continue to diversify and stabilize the long-term water supply.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the City Council will discuss the water department\u2019s proposal to revive the Inner Harbor Desalination Project, which can provide up to 10 million gallons of drinking water a day. But the soonest it could deliver water, if approved, would be late 2029. The city is also considering desalination plant proposals from two private companies,\u00a0AXE H2O<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Aquatech<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The city is also investing in wastewater recycling, an $11 million project that could produce up to 16 million gallons a day for outdoor use, such as golf courses and parks. Earlier this month, the city approved a contractor to work on that system, but just 60% of the design is complete so far, according to the city manager\u2019s\u00a0latest water memo<\/a>.<\/p>\n On a typical summer day, Corpus Christi\u2019s system provides about 130 million gallons of water, Winkelmann said.<\/p>\n City leaders got some positive news in mid-May when heavy rainfall pushed projections of a Level 1 emergency back by three months, from September to December. More good news arrived this week after rains continued to refill area reservoirs, likely delaying an emergency declaration into early 2027 \u2014 though that determination won\u2019t be made until June 23.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re working towards every day to push that date out and eventually take that date completely off the table,\u201d Winkelmann said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Andrew Coppin, CEO of Ranchbot Monitoring Solutions, a company that helps ranchers track their water usage, said Corpus Christi\u2019s situation should serve as a warning for the rest of the state.<\/p>\n \u201cHow many more Corpuses are coming in the next few years?\u201d asked Coppin, based in Fort Worth.<\/p>\n Even after 12 years in the water management businesses, Coppin said, Corpus Christi\u2019s situation still shocks him.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got a large city in a first world country \u2014 arguably, the most successful first world country on the planet \u2014 and it\u2019s running out of water,\u201d he said. \u201cI think what it highlights is the imperative for us to better manage and quantify water.\u201d<\/p>\n