From Inside Climate News:
On the South Texas coast, the city of Corpus Christi has initiated an emergency effort to boost its water supply as local reservoirs experience a yearslong decline and water demand from big industrial projects continues to grow.
The Corpus Christi City Council approved a measure last week to begin leasing land for wells that will pump millions of gallons per day into the Nueces River, the region’s main water supply. It followed an emergency authorization memo for the project issued by the city manager on Dec. 31.
Two weeks earlier, Corpus Christi, which supplies water to 600,000 people in seven counties, enacted its strictest water use restrictions in at least 30 years, when combined levels in its two reservoirs on the Nueces River fell below 20 percent full after years of sparse rainfall.
“This is my fourth drought in my 43-year engineering career,” said John Michael, a senior vice president with engineering contractor Hanson Professional Services and manager for Corpus Christi’s Nueces River groundwater project, which aims to produce 20 million gallons per day by autumn. “They’re not easy. They’re high anxiety. They’re stressful.”
Drought has always been a part of life in South Texas. But in recent years, Corpus Christi has faced combined pressures of a prolonged dry spell and record-breaking heat during a period of rapid growth in its industrial sector.
City leaders initially hoped to meet the water demands of new industrial facilities with a large seawater desalination plant, which they planned to build by 2023. But the project became mired in delays and still remains years away from completion.
Meanwhile, the new industrial facilities have begun to draw water. An enormous plastics plant owned by ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp. uses millions of gallons per day. A lithium refinery owned by Tesla is slowly starting operations and plans to drastically increase its water consumption in coming years, according to water authority records. Another company has secured rights to millions of gallons per day of Nueces River water to produce hydrogen for export, but hasn’t yet broken ground.
Several other hydrogen plants, a carbon capture facility and a new refinery are also in development nearby. Other companies are interested in building here, too.
“There are a lot of projects that have looked at locating in South Texas, but it will be difficult until this drought is over or we have added some additional supply,” Michael said. “It’s going to be difficult to take on any big new industrial projects, other than the ones that have already started.”
Corpus Christi now hopes to build its first desalination plant by mid-2028. If the city’s reservoirs continue their rate of decline from recent years, that could be too late.
The Nueces River groundwater initiative was one of several short-term water supply projects described in an update issued by the city in January. As the two Nueces River reservoirs dwindle, crews are also hurriedly expanding a pipeline and pump stations to Corpus Christi’s third reservoir, Lake Texana, which remains 75 percent full but is 100 miles away. The update also said a private desalination plant built by a local plastics manufacturer, CC Polymers, will come online in 2025, and could be incorporated into the public water supply.
“It’s kind of an all-hands-on-deck thing right now,” said Perry Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network, a lobbying group based in Austin. “The water supply situation is rather serious.”
Corpus Christi isn’t alone. Across parts of south, west and central Texas, decades of rapid development and recurring drought have stretched water supplies to their limits. Official projections show some places running dry within 10 or 20 years, with few new sources of water to turn to.
That’s a major deterrent to big businesses, from microchip makers to chemical plants, that would otherwise invest in Texas.
This year, Fowler said, water planning is expected to take center stage as the Texas Legislature meets for its biennial session, with legislation in development that could make billions of dollars of state financing available to develop new sources across the state.
“Water is being viewed appropriately as an economic development issue, so I think it’s got really broad support,” Fowler said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen the discussion elevated to this level.”
Real solutions, he said, will be developed over decades. In the immediate term, there isn’t much state lawmakers can do.
A gamble on desalination
In Corpus Christi, leaders watched this situation creep up slowly. More than a year ago, the city stopped releasing reservoir water meant to support wetland ecosystems where the Nueces River meets the Gulf. But levels kept falling, from 44 percent full in 2023 to 31 percent a year ago and 19 percent today.
In December, the city intensified restrictions for local residents, prohibiting any outdoor water use for landscaping or car washing.
Water use restrictions, however, don’t apply to the region’s sprawling refineries and chemical plants, thanks to a purchasable exemption for industrial users passed by the City Council in 2018.
Proceeds from that exemption fee—$0.25 per 1,000 gallons consumed—were meant to fund development of the seawater desalination plant that was supposed to have been ready by 2023 to meet the demands of rapid growth in the region’s industrial sector.
When city staff members first presented their desalination plan to the City Council in 2019, they displayed a graph showing large increases in water demand in 2022 and 2023, citing the Exxon-SABIC plastics plant, a new steel mill and other projects.
“A new water supply designed to meet new water demand should be in place before the new demand is consuming water,” the presentation said. “Based on supply and demand projections, the first Seawater Desalination Plant needs to be operational (supplying water) in early 2023.”
