{"id":322298,"date":"2026-06-04T09:55:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:55:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/322298\/"},"modified":"2026-06-04T09:55:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-04T09:55:10","slug":"why-corpus-christi-delayed-a-major-water-crisis-fix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/322298\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Corpus Christi delayed a major water crisis fix"},"content":{"rendered":"

Corpus Christi is running out of water<\/a>, and along with it, so is much of the Coastal Bend. But, after more than a dozen hours of discussion \u2014 including comments from over 100 members of the public \u2014 city leaders have once again put off making a decision on the controversial Inner Harbor desalination plant<\/a>.<\/p>\n

At stake during Tuesday\u2019s lengthy meeting \u2014 which stretched from 9 a.m. until after 2 a.m. Wednesday \u2014 was a proposal to award a $78.6 million contract for the design of the Inner Harbor Desalination Plant. But rather than approving or denying the contract, a split Corpus Christi City Council chose to do nothing \u2014 at least until September 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wish that today we would have moved this forward for a thousand reasons, and it all has to do with certainty for the people of this city and for this region. I know there\u2019s\u2026 a motion to table on the floor, but I would ask that you would reconsider that motion,\u201d Corpus Christi Mayor Paulette\u00a0M. Guajardo said with an audible note of defeat in her voice.<\/p>\n

When the rest of the council remained silent, she responded, \u201cOK, alright. I tried. I just want to put that on the record.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, seven of the council\u2019s nine members voted to postpone the contract vote, further delaying the on-again, off-again desalination plant project that has polarized the Coastal Bend for years<\/a>. This week\u2019s vote would have given new life to the billion-dollar project that the city council killed last fall amid concerns over ballooning costs. Had the council\u00a0greenlit the design contract award, it still would have taken a year \u2014 until August 2027 at the earliest \u2014 before construction could have begun, according to a presentation delivered by Nicholas Winkelmann, Corpus Christi Water\u2019s chief operating officer. From there, \u201cmechanical completion\u201d of construction would have taken nearly three years \u2014 well into 2030.<\/p>\n

But the Coastal Bend is staring down a looming water crisis now<\/a> \u2014 one that could make Corpus Christi the first city in the United States to run out of water. Despite the region\u2019s desperate need for new sources of water, opposition to the desalination plant continues to grow. Local residents worry it would come at too high a cost, and not just in terms of dollar figures. They lambasted the project\u2019s potential to damage the environment. They also criticized the impact the plant would have on the\u00a0Hillcrest neighborhood, where the plant will be built. The city has previously faced penalties for Civil Rights Act violations<\/a> associated with building the new Harbor Bridge through the heart of the historically Black community.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen historically Black communities continue to be surrounded by industrial development, residents have every right to question whether equity and environmental justice are truly being considered,\u201d District 2 resident Tina Butler said.<\/p>\n

The desalination plant isn\u2019t the only water infrastructure project Corpus Christi is pursuing. The city is also investing more than a billion dollars \u2014- most of it through loans \u2014 \u00a0in digging dozens of groundwater wells<\/a>, water reclamation projects, brackish water treatment plants, and in buying additional water rights. All together, the projects<\/a> are expected to cause a nearly $30 increase to a resident\u2019s average monthly water bill, Winkelmann said.<\/p>\n

But the true cost of financing all the projects could wind up higher than that. That\u2019s because earlier this week, one of the nation\u2019s largest credit rating companies,\u00a0Fitch Ratings downgraded Corpus Christi\u2019s credit outlook<\/a>, which will make financing debt a more expensive proposition. Fitch \u2014 a subsidiary of MySA\u2019s parent company, Hearst \u2014 cited the city\u2019s poor leadership<\/a> and its \u201cfailure to address (water) supply deficiencies\u201d as the reasons behind its new negative outlook.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven the system\u2019s heightened risk profile, including concerns related to management and governance, anticipated performance is more consistent with the \u2018A-\u2019 rating level,\u201d the credit rating company said on Monday, June 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi is running out of water, and along with it, so is much of the Coastal Bend.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322299,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-322298","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\/322298","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=322298"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322298\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}