Corpus Christi is a town built around water. But while the Gulf of Mexico has made the region what it is today, seawater can’t save Corpus from a rapidly growing water crisis.
As the Gulf shines on the horizon, water for the town’s residents is nowhere to be found. Wilting plants, timed showers, and unwashed cars have become a staple as drought restrictions continue. Industries, on the other hand, face no limits on water use, and a resource-intensive expansion of new projects in the region, including Tesla’s new lithium refinery, is expected to add much more demand for an already strained supply.
A Texas city the size of Corpus Christi, with a population of about 315,000, generally uses around 38 percent of its water supply for industrial, commercial or institutional use, according to the Texas Water Development Board. In Corpus, a coastal hub for heavy industry, that rate is at least 58 percent, according to Corpus Christi Water, the city’s municipal water utility.
“The City of Corpus Christi keeps telling us that we need to save water, but they don’t do anything to implement that on the industries,” said Myra Alaniz, a member of the environmental justice group Chispa Texas and resident of Robstown, just outside of Corpus. “We’re having to take the burden of the drought while industries, who make profit from it, go on their merry way.”
Drought restrictions have been in place since the summer of 2022 and have only grown more strict. Now, Corpus Christi Water, the city’s water agency, is preparing to implement brand-new Stage 4 drought restrictions, which would make it mandatory to comply with the currently voluntary recommendations to limit car washing and lawn watering.
“It’s called Stage 4, but the future recommendation from my office will be to call it an emergency,” Esteban Ramos, water resource manager at Corpus Christi Water (CCW), told the Texas Observer in March. “We’re at the end of the rope, and there isn’t rainfall on the horizon. … Calling it an emergency prepares our community and communities around us” for the next steps that could be coming.
Yet, while residents are pushed to cut back on use, large industrial facilities in the vicinity of the Nueces Bay are still using the majority of the water under CCW’s jurisdiction—without restrictions—such as the energy company Avina’s new high-tech plant to process ammonia and hydrogen into alternative fuels and export it abroad. Last April, Avina purchased rights to 5.5 million gallons of water per day for the next 25 years—the last remaining supply from the Nueces River.
It’s not just Corpus Christi. Fifteen minutes west, near Robstown, Texas-based electric car manufacturer Tesla’s new lithium refinery has also drawn concerns about the local water supply.
Under the direction of Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO, Texas transplant and key ally to President Donald Trump, Tesla announced its plans to build the $1-billion, 1,200-acre facility—a key part of its domestic manufacturing supply chain—back in 2023 and began production in December 2024.
Tesla estimated that the plant would use around 1 million gallons of water per day by October of this year but could eventually use as much as 8 million gallons per day, according to February 2024 meeting minutes from the South Texas Water Authority, which purchases its water from Corpus Christi. If you filled plastic water bottles with those 8 million gallons every day and lined them up end-to-end, you could circle the equator nearly nine times in a month.
It’s not yet clear how Tesla will source its water supply for the refinery, and both the company and local officials have provided few details. Tesla did not respond to the Observer’s requests for comment about its water supply plans. Tesla reportedly began refinery operations without an official water contract, according to a recent report by KRIS 6 News.
The prospect of Tesla becoming yet another thirsty industrial water consumer has locals worried about the future.
“It’s always on the back of our mind that we have to conserve [water], so we try to wash dishes quickly or take a bath quickly, but then in the back of our minds we’re also thinking, why are we doing this?” said Alaniz, the Robstown resident and activist, who’s been closely tracking local water supply and regulation issues ever since Avina announced plans for its facility. “What we conserve is literally a drop in the bucket to what needs to be done, which industry is not contributing to.”
Environmental advocates are alarmed, but not surprised, that big industries are able to pursue their seemingly unquenchable thirst for water in Texas without resistance. “I’d like to be surprised these days that they’d be proposing facilities that could take that much water from us,” said Jake Hernandez, a lead organizer in the Corpus office of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, a nonprofit focused on industrial pollution. “The sad truth is, it’s a pattern … so it doesn’t surprise me that much. The simple fact of the matter is, we don’t have that.”
Nueces County Water Control and Improvement District #3, which controls Robstown’s water distribution, did not respond to requests for comment. The South Texas Water Authority, which oversees a number of water suppliers in the region, also didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Some attempts are being made to get additional water supply for the region, such as the expansion of the Mary Rhodes Pipeline, which supplies the Corpus Christi and Robstown areas with water from Lake Texarkana and the Colorado River. However, many residents fear it’s not enough, and they may well be right.
If the pipeline were to operate at maximum capacity once the expansion is completed as expected later this month, Lake Corpus Christi would run out of water for municipal use by June 2026, according to estimates obtained through a public information request. Water levels in the lake are currently at one of the lowest since the reservoir was created in 1958 and are on track to reach their lowest ever in the coming months, according to the estimates and data from the Texas Water Development Board.
If the pipeline were to fail for any reason, the lake would run out by October—just over half a year from now, according to the water level forecast. Meanwhile, industrial water use is classified as essential, which means plants and refineries are largely exempt from local water conservation mandates.
While the City of Corpus Christi doesn’t sell water to Tesla, Ramos, the Corpus Christi water manger, acknowledged that the impacts of industrial water use nearby can harm others in the area. Still, he said that Corpus Christi Water is being intentional with its decision-making and denied claims that the entity has overcommitted its water supply.
“We have not over-allocated [or] oversold our water,” Ramos said. “We look at everybody that’s coming in, and we evaluate our supply and whether or not to get into any additional contracts.”
The Corpus Christi area isn’t alone in its water problems. Water crises are plaguing regions all across Texas and have become a growing political concern. In his State of the State address in February, Governor Greg Abbott declared water policy an emergency item this legislative session, calling for what he said will be the largest one-time water investment in the state’s history.
Senator Charles Perry, a Republican from Lubbock, has taken the lead on the issue with a package of water legislation, including the centerpiece Senate Bill 7. That bill would establish protocols for the Texas Water Fund to finance infrastructure development like pipelines or reservoirs and expand the power of the Texas Water Development Board, the state’s leading water agency. The Texas Water Fund was approved by voters in 2023 to fund the investments proposed under SB 7.
“Every day, there’s a news story of some community development stopped or not able to go forward because their water supply system doesn’t support the current growth,” Perry said when presenting SB 7 to the Senate on April 2. “The one thing that is lacking to get the [Texas Water Plan] to where it needs to be today is funding.”
The roughly $1 billion-a-year bill passed unanimously in the Senate and is awaiting a vote in the House.
But organizers around Corpus say the bill isn’t addressing the right problems—and instead will invest large sums of money into purported solutions like industrial desalination plants, which convert saltwater into freshwater, in places like Corpus Christi, where such projects are already in the works. While it will take years to build those desalination plants, local authorities are already taking water “reservations” from industrial operators in the area.
Chispa Texas program director Elida Castillo worries that SB 7 focuses on funding investments in desalination and other harmful water sourcing methods instead of prioritizing the conservation of pre-existing water sources.
“[The Legislature is] going to be spending billions of dollars for new water supplies, and they’re not doing anything to protect our existing water supplies,” said Castillo, who is also a city council member in the small town of Taft near Corpus. “[SB 7] is only going to lead to funding for desalination, which impacts communities like mine. … If you look at who’s supporting this proposition, it’s the oil and gas industry and the desalination associations.”
Castillo also said that the contracts between water suppliers and industrial customers like Avina benefit those big companies far more than the average residential user, with companies sometimes paying just over half what residents pay per gallon because of the industries’ bulk purchases. When CCW took steps to bridge the cost gap last year, industrial customers filed a complaint with the Texas Public Utility Commission, sparking a legal battle that was settled privately, according to Commission filings.
Castillo said that proposed water contracts from the desalination plant include a small surcharge companies have agreed to pay in an attempt to offset the cost imposed on residents for the plant’s operation but that it won’t be enough to mitigate the cost from overselling.
“Just in the Corpus area, you have Robstown Water District Number Three, South Texas Water Authority, the Nueces River Authority, the City of Corpus Christi, and they’re all drawing water from the same sources, but they’re all signing their own contracts for water with these different industries,” Castillo said.
She warns that water policies that focus on supplying the expansion of new industrial development without any type of conservation regulations will devastate the Corpus bay’s ecosystem and leave ordinary residents facing the brunt of the impacts.
“We have to accept that Texas’ economic prosperity comes at an expense, and that price tag is way too high,” Castillo said. “Every part of the state has some sort of issue with either no water or excessive pollution, things of that nature. [We have to] look at the situation and take those measures to mitigate the risks and harms to our community and accept that the Texas miracle isn’t a real thing [for everyone].”
While Tesla has yet not disclosed a contract for its refinery water supply, those in the Corpus area are worried it’s only a matter of time. Residents and activists feel like a lack of water hasn’t stopped local or state leaders before, and they worry it may not now.
“This is continuing this culture of sacrificing communities to expand the economy,” Hernandez said. “We cannot allow any more of our communities to become sacrifice zones for people who do not live here.”
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