Corpus Christi water emergency could be two months awayCorpus Christi leaders on Tuesday unveiled new projections suggesting that the city could...
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network
Corpus Christi leaders on Tuesday unveiled new projections suggesting that the city could be just two months away from triggering emergency water measures.
At a marathon city council meeting that stretched for 10 hours, Nick Winkelmann, interim chief operating officer of Corpus Christi Water, outlined five potential scenarios — two of which would push the city into a level one water emergency by May. At that point, the city’s water supply would be projected to fall short of demand within 180 days.
When pressed by council member Kaylynn Paxson on which scenario the city is preparing to follow, staffers at the water utility said they expect to narrow the possibilities down to two or three in the coming weeks as more data becomes available.
Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott — who sharply criticized Corpus Christi leaders for their handling of the crisis recently — has ordered agencies to suspend normal procedures in an effort to buy the city more time.
Complicating the outlook are bleak seasonal forecasts. Projections from the National Weather Service show little to no rainfall expected between July and September, limiting inflows to key reservoirs that supply the city, including Choke Canyon, Lake Corpus Christi and Lake Texana.
Despite the mounting concerns, the city has not finalized a curtailment plan that would lay out how much — and how soon — residents and businesses would have to reduce their water use.
“If we get to the point where we have to declare a level one water emergency, we need to be ready for that and we have no precedent to follow and we have no there’s no manual, there’s no video, there’s no, ‘This is how we did it the last time,’ ” City Manager Peter Zanoni told the council, adding that a curtailment plan could take weeks or months to finalize and implement.
Tuesday’s meeting marked the culmination of a crisis that has been years in the making. For a decade, Corpus Christi has aggressively courted large companies to build refineries, natural gas export terminals and other industrial facilities along Corpus Christi Bay while promising the city would have sufficient water to meet the expected demand.
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https://www.texastribune.org/2026/03/17/texas-corpus-christi-water-emergency-city-council-meetingTaxonomy
- Water Supply
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- Water Supply
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