General Discussion

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The oil and gas industry wanted to build enormous projects in the region, processing oil and gas from Texas’ shale fields into myriad fuels, chemicals and plastics before loading them onto tankers for export. In March 2017, then-city manager Margie Rose sent a letter to ExxonMobil, the world’s largest private oil company, that said, “because the City aggressively protects water resources for the future by implementing a matrix of supply strategies, we feel that we have sufficient water supplies to meet your needs.”

Six days later the city requested funding from the Texas Water Development Board to study feasibility and do preliminary design of a seawater desalination plant. Around that time, Strawbridge said, “it became very clear to the port authority that there was a difference of opinions as to how much water was available and how much would be needed to continue to attract large industrial investors.” “The city felt that it had enough water to last, based on its forecast, until 2040,” Strawbridge said. “We, the port authority, had a very different view of what that demand curve looked like.”

That’s when the port began developing plans for its own desalination plant, he said. In 2018, a new, interim city manager, Keith Selman, promised another large volume of water to Steel Dynamics, which then built a steel mill in the area.

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“Let the shit hit the fan,” said Serna. “Let dog eat dog.” What does he think will happen to Corpus Christi? In time, he said, the refineries and chemical plants will probably build their own water projects, somehow, and possibly restart their facilities that they will have to mothball in the meantime. For residents, he said, life might be like it used to be for him, 70 years ago, as a boy in the Rio Grande Valley, when he would hang plastic jugs on mesquite branches and carry them on his shoulder to ask nearby companies for water. “This is the legacy of the imbeciles,” he said.

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https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08032026/after-a-decade-of-missteps-a-texas-city-careens-toward-a-water-shortage-catastrophe/