Corpus Christi, Texas, house to the country’s greatest oil export hub, and its surrounding Coastal Bend space are in a water scarcity that has citizens, companies, and trade sparsely tracking their water use and anxious a couple of rising disaster.
Since August 2024, town’s 318,000 citizens were not able to water their lawns and feature been limited of their talent to water gardens or wash their boats and automobiles.
With out vital rainfall, town’s govt will have to claim a water emergency once December 2026. This will require families to restrict their water use to six,000 gallons monthly (22,700 liters), two-thirds of the common U.S. family’s water use.
I learn about hydrology and water assets on the College of Texas at Arlington. As a part of my analysis, I’m growing laptop fashions to tell flood and drought making plans within the Coastal Bend area.
Officers were exploring answers, together with some with the prospective to a minimum of quickly ease the water disaster. However fixing the area’s long-term water issues will most likely require primary investments, in particular as its industries make bigger.
Fickle provides
Town of Corpus Christi supplies 65% of the area’s water provide, serving over 500,000 citizens and big commercial shoppers.
Lots of the town’s water comes from rainfall and runoff in 3 river basins: the Nueces, the Lavaca-Navidad and the Colorado. Water is saved in Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi within the Nueces basin. That is supplemented by means of water transported by the use of the Mary Rhodes Pipeline from the Colorado River channel and from Lake Texana within the Lavaca-Navidad basin.
The Nueces basin has been experiencing in style drought prerequisites since past due 2021, resulting in very low water ranges in Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi. As of Would possibly 2026, those reservoirs are at about 8% in their blended capability. Consequently, town has had to attract extra water from the Colorado River and Lake Texana, which as of March 2026 provide about 73% of town’s water. Water ranges in Lake Texana were declining since mid-2025, resulting in issues about additional discounts in water availability, however fresh rain has replenished one of the vital provide.
Rising call for
Coinciding with the long-term drought, the area has noticed considerable commercial expansion, spurred by means of the growth of the Port of Corpus Christi. From 2013 to 2023, the port’s industry worth greater than doubled, partially because of higher fracking for oil and herbal gasoline in West Texas and the 2015 loosening of oil-export restrictions. The port is now the country’s No. 1 exporter of crude oil.
Within the past due 2010s, because the port’s expansion attracted water-intensive petrochemical industries to the Coastal Bend, town personnel instructed corporations there can be sufficient water to fulfill their wishes.
To fulfill that emerging call for, town knew it will want new water provides to be to be had by means of 2023. However the town has no longer evolved new water resources since 2016.
Plans for a desalination plant that may flip ocean water into recent water were within the works for nearly a decade, promising a drought-resistant water provide for the area. Between 2017 and 2024, town gained greater than US$750 million in loans from the state to devise, design and construct the plant. However in September 2025, the Town Council scrapped the plans, mentioning emerging prices, which had ballooned to $1.2 billion. This left town scrambling to expand choice provides to deal with the present scarcity.
Discovering extra water
Town is operating to make its water provide much less reliant on floor water, which is dependent upon rainfall and is delicate to the results of drought.
Groundwater wells drilled deep underground alongside the Nueces River are already supplying roughly 12 million gallons consistent with day (45.4 million liters) to complement floor water provides.
Samuel Alaniz waters his lawn at his house on Would possibly 7, 2026, in Robstown, Texas, which will get its ingesting water from Corpus Christi.
Brandon Bell/Getty Photographs
Town may be pursuing lets in to put in wells within the Evangeline aquifer situated to its north to extract up to 24 million gallons consistent with day (91 million liters), beginning as early as November 2026. Alternatively, neighboring communities are involved that Corpus Christi’s pumping may burn up their groundwater provides, and they have got filed forms in quest of to dam town’s allow request for the Evangeline venture.
Despite the fact that the deliberate venture turns into operational, groundwater provides aren’t proof against drought. With out enough rainfall, groundwater aquifers aren’t replenished, which means water ranges will proceed to drop and deeper wells shall be wanted to achieve the diminishing provide.
Reclaiming sewage
Town may be making plans to make use of handled wastewater from its sewage plant for commercial cooling, irrigation, and different functions that don’t come with ingesting or meals preparation. In most cases, that water has been discharged into native creeks and bays.
A number of corporations, together with oil giants Valero and Flint Hill Assets, have agreed to make use of reclaimed water at their amenities instead of drinkable water this is extra purified than what they if truth be told want. The design for the pipes and pumping station wanted to provide this water is predicted to be finished in June 2026, with an preliminary 1 million gallons consistent with day to be had in October 2026 and as much as 16 million gallons consistent with day (60.5 million liters) when the venture is absolutely built.
Commercial expansion in Corpus Christi, together with from the petrochemical trade, has higher call for for water lately.
Brandon Bell/Getty Photographs
And in spite of the Town Council’s vote in 2025, there are nonetheless plans within the works for desalination. Town is thinking about buying water from a desalination plant owned by means of a neighborhood corporate, Corpus Christi Polymers. Building of this plant is just about entire, and lets in have already been got to perform the ability. The prices have no longer but been negotiated, however the plant may provide roughly 8 million gallons consistent with day (30.2 million liters) of water inside a yr, if town makes a decision to transport ahead.
Town may be bearing in mind resurrecting the plans for the unique desalination plant or figuring out places for extra crops, regardless that questions stay about how a lot those amenities would value. There also are issues about how the wastewater discharged from desalination, which normally incorporates top concentrations of minerals, would hurt fish, shellfish and different animals if no longer blended neatly with current water in Corpus Christi Bay.
Within the quick time period, citizens and companies will proceed to stand obligatory restrictions on water use, a minimum of till rainfall prerequisites give a boost to or new provides are evolved.
Over the long run, making plans will wish to take into accout the opportunity of a unbroken drought and the results of local weather trade, which is projected to reason longer and extra serious dry spells. The ones efforts will allow extra correct estimates of the reliability of current or deliberate water provides and tell how a lot water is to be had to allocate for quite a lot of makes use of shifting ahead.
