Corpus Christi, Texas, home to the nation’s largest oil export hub, and its surrounding Coastal Bend area are in a water shortage that has residents, businesses, and industry carefully monitoring their water use and worried about a growing crisis.
Since August 2024, the city’s 318,000 residents have been unable to water their lawns and have been restricted in their ability to water gardens or wash their boats and cars.
Without significant rainfall, the city’s government may have to declare a water emergency as soon as December 2026. This would require households to limit their water use to 6,000 gallons per month (22,700 liters), two-thirds of the average U.S. household’s water use.
I study hydrology and water resources at the University of Texas at Arlington. As part of my research, I am developing computer models to inform flood and drought planning in the Coastal Bend region.
Officials have been exploring solutions, including some with the potential to at least temporarily ease the water crisis. But solving the region’s long-term water problems will likely require major investments, particularly as its industries expand.
Fickle supplies
The city of Corpus Christi provides 65% of the region’s water supply, serving over 500,000 residents and large industrial customers.
Most of the city’s water comes from rainfall and runoff in three river basins: the Nueces, the Lavaca-Navidad and the Colorado. Water is stored in Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi in the Nueces basin. This is supplemented by water transported via the Mary Rhodes Pipeline from the Colorado River channel and from Lake Texana in the Lavaca-Navidad basin.
The Nueces basin has been experiencing widespread drought conditions since late 2021, leading to very low water levels in Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi. As of May 2026, these reservoirs are at about 8% of their combined capacity. As a result, the city has had to draw more water from the Colorado River and Lake Texana, which as of March 2026 supply about 73% of the city’s water. Water levels in Lake Texana have been declining since mid-2025, leading to concerns about further reductions in water availability, but recent rain has replenished some of the supply.
Growing demand
Coinciding with the long-term drought, the region has seen substantial industrial growth, spurred by the expansion of the Port of Corpus Christi. From 2013 to 2023, the port’s trade value more than doubled, in part as a result of increased fracking for oil and natural gas in West Texas and the 2015 loosening of oil-export restrictions. The port is now the nation’s No. 1 exporter of crude oil.
In the late 2010s, as the port’s growth attracted water-intensive petrochemical industries to the Coastal Bend, city staff told companies there would be enough water to meet their needs.
To satisfy that rising demand, the city knew it would need new water supplies to be available by 2023. But the city has not developed new water sources since 2016.
Plans for a desalination plant that would turn ocean water into fresh water have been in the works for almost a decade, promising a drought-resistant water supply for the region. Between 2017 and 2024, the city received more than US$750 million in loans from the state to plan, design and build the plant. But in September 2025, the City Council scrapped the plans, citing rising costs, which had ballooned to $1.2 billion. This left the city scrambling to develop alternative supplies to address the current shortage.
Finding more water
The city is working to make its water supply less reliant on surface water, which depends on rainfall and is sensitive to the effects of drought.
Groundwater wells drilled deep underground along the Nueces River are already supplying approximately 12 million gallons per day (45.4 million liters) to supplement surface water supplies.
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The city is also pursuing permits to install wells in the Evangeline aquifer located to its north to extract as much as 24 million gallons per day (91 million liters), starting as early as November 2026. However, neighboring communities are concerned that Corpus Christi’s pumping could deplete their groundwater supplies, and they have filed paperwork seeking to block the city’s permit request for the Evangeline project.
Even if the planned project becomes operational, groundwater supplies are not immune to drought. Without sufficient rainfall, groundwater aquifers are not replenished, meaning water levels will continue to drop and deeper wells will be needed to reach the diminishing supply.
Reclaiming sewage
The city is also planning to use treated wastewater from its sewage plant for industrial cooling, irrigation, and other purposes that do not include drinking or food preparation. Normally, that water has been discharged into local creeks and bays.
Several companies, including oil giants Valero and Flint Hill Resources, have agreed to use reclaimed water at their facilities in place of drinkable water that is more purified than what they actually need. The design for the pipes and pumping station needed to supply this water is expected to be completed in June 2026, with an initial 1 million gallons per day available in October 2026 and up to 16 million gallons per day (60.5 million liters) when the project is fully constructed.
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And despite the City Council’s vote in 2025, there are still plans in the works for desalination. The city is considering purchasing water from a desalination plant owned by a local company, Corpus Christi Polymers. Construction of this plant is nearly complete, and permits have already been acquired to operate the facility. The costs have not yet been negotiated, but the plant could supply approximately 8 million gallons per day (30.2 million liters) of water within a year, if the city decides to move forward.
The city is also considering resurrecting the plans for the original desalination plant or identifying locations for additional plants, though questions remain about how much these facilities would cost. There are also concerns about how the wastewater discharged from desalination, which typically contains high concentrations of minerals, would harm fish, shellfish and other animals if not mixed well with existing water in Corpus Christi Bay.
In the short term, residents and businesses will continue to face mandatory restrictions on water use, at least until rainfall conditions improve or new supplies are developed.
Over the longer term, planning will need to take into account the potential for a continuing drought and the effects of climate change, which is projected to cause longer and more severe dry spells. Those efforts will enable more accurate estimates of the reliability of existing or planned water supplies and inform how much water is available to allocate for various uses moving forward.
