Texas Gov. Threatens Takeover as Corpus Christi Pushes $1B Water Infrastructure Program

The initiative comes below vital stress. Metropolis modeling exhibits water provide might fall under projected demand as early as June 2027, communications director Elisa Olsen instructed the Texas Tribune. “We’re not out of water, however our water provide is declining,” she stated.

In the meantime, the groundwater program, central to town’s near-term technique, faces allowing challenges on a number of fronts. New wells in rural Nueces County have encountered therapy points on account of salinity, and extra drilling in San Patricio County has drawn opposition from residents. Town of Sinton filed a February problem to the Evangeline challenge’s permits, arguing the proposed withdrawals might trigger unreasonable declines in countywide water ranges, in keeping with Inside Climate News.

Industrial customers are serving to finance new provide improvement via town’s Drought Surcharge Exemption Payment program, which prices collaborating amenities $0.31 per 1,000 gallons every month, producing roughly $6 million yearly.

The urgency displays a decade of business enlargement alongside the bay—significantly in petrochemical and power improvement—that has outpaced obtainable provide, ICN reported. Reservoir ranges have additionally fallen throughout the present extended drought, compounding demand pressures.

The latest initiative gained momentum after town council voted in September 2025 to cancel the Interior Harbor Desalination Plant, a 30-MGD facility in progressive design-build improvement with Kiewit Infrastructure South Co. The cancellation terminated a $50-million design contract at solely 10% completion, ENR reported in November. The price trajectory instructed the story: early estimates put the plant at $220 million, earlier than post-2019 development inflation and capability expansions drove the determine to $757 million on the 2024 contract award, then to $1.2 billion by July 2025, when the council pulled the plug. Arcadis and GHD had been among the many engineering corporations on the challenge, with greater than 150 Kiewit and engineering workers assigned on the time of termination.

Mayor Paulette Guajardo, who had advocated persevering with the challenge, stated terminating Kiewit’s contract would flush $50 million “down the bathroom.” Drew Molly, then chief working officer of Corpus Christi Water, had warned metropolis supervisor Peter Zanoni in writing that cancellation would depart town “with no totally permitted different.” Molly subsequently resigned to take a place in Houston.

James Dodson, a former water division director, instructed ICN town had “dismissed repeated alternatives to develop groundwater import tasks” whereas sustaining a singular concentrate on desalination. Sean Strawbridge, former CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, cited town’s “lack of expertise, their lack of know-how, their lack of recognizing the dangers,” including: “Time is up.”

The canceled challenge carried vital state funding. The Houston Chronicle reported $235 million in direct state funding and greater than $700 million in low-interest loans permitted by the Texas Water Growth Board via the State Water Implementation Fund. Talking from an occasion in Manor, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott (R), whose appointees sit on that board, stated Tuesday town didn’t comply with via on the dedication. “You realize what they did? They squandered it, after which they modified their plan, after which they had been indecisive about what to do.”

Abbott went additional, issuing a direct ultimatum. “What Corpus Christi leaders need to do is decide,” he stated. “We will solely give them a little bit time extra earlier than the state of Texas has to take over and micromanage that metropolis and run that metropolis to make it possible for each resident who goes to the water faucet and turns it on, they will be getting water out of their faucet—not due to what native leaders are doing, however due to what the state of Texas will do.” 

He added that the state is “totally dedicated to creating certain that Corpus Christi residents are gonna have the water they should stay their lives like the remainder of the individuals within the state of Texas.” ENR reached out to the governor’s workplace for clarification on what a takeover would entail and the authorized authority below which it could happen, however didn’t obtain a response.

Texas Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, instructed an area radio station that “locals didn’t need to pay for water, and that’s one facet that we’re seeing play out in Corpus that we’re gonna have conversations about across the state,” the Tribune reported.

Town has imposed conservation measures within the interim, banning garden watering and requiring residents to make use of a five-gallon bucket when washing automobiles.

The Corpus Christi Metropolis Council is predicted to handle the matter at its March 17 assembly.