In the Texas Gulf Coast city of Corpus Christi, officials are moving forward with nearly $1 billion in water infrastructure improvements as they grapple with a long-running supply shortage and new pressure after the governor’s warning this week that the state could be forced to step in.
Projects currently under construction or engineering include Nueces River groundwater well fields totaling 36 million gallons per day (MGD), the 24-MGD Evangeline Groundwater Project, and a 16-MGD reclaimed water initiative. Three desalination sites—Inner Harbor, Harbor Island, and the Barney Davis Power Plant—are back in the pipeline after an earlier seawater proposal collapsed. “These projects are not ‘plans’ for the future; they are active construction and engineering efforts,” the city said in a Announcement of March 9.
The initiative is under significant pressure. The city’s model shows that water supply could fall below projected demand as early as June 2027, Communications Director Elisa Olsen said. the Texas Tribune. “We’re not out of water, but our water supply is dwindling,” he said.
Meanwhile, the groundwater program, central to the city’s short-term strategy, faces permitting challenges on multiple fronts. New wells in rural Nueces County have encountered treatment problems due to salinity, and additional drilling in San Patricio County has drawn opposition from residents. The city of Sinton filed a February challenge to the Evangeline project’s permits, arguing that the proposed withdrawals could cause unreasonable drops in water levels across the county, it said. Within Climate News.
Industrial users are helping fund the development of new supplies through the city’s drought surcharge waiver rate program, which charges participating facilities $0.31 per 1,000 gallons each month, generating roughly $6 million annually.
The urgency reflects a decade of industrial expansion along the bay, particularly in petrochemical and energy development, which has outstripped available supply, ICN reported. Reservoir levels have also fallen during the current prolonged drought, increasing demand pressures.
The recent initiative gained momentum after the city council voted in September 2025 to cancel the Inner Harbor Desalination Plant, a 30 MGD facility under progressive design-build development with Kiewit Infrastructure South Co. The cancellation terminated a $50 million design contract with only 10% completion. ENR reported in November. The cost trajectory told the story: Early estimates put the plant at $220 million, before construction inflation and post-2019 capacity expansions pushed the figure to $757 million in the 2024 contract award, then to $1.2 billion in July 2025, when the council pulled the plug. Arcadis and GHD were among the engineering firms on the project, with more than 150 Kiewit and engineering staff assigned at the time of completion.
Mayor Paulette Guajardo, who had advocated for the project to continue, said terminating Kiewit’s contract would throw $50 million “down the toilet.” Drew Molly, then chief operating officer of Corpus Christi Water, had warned City Manager Peter Zanoni in writing that the cancellation would leave the city “without a fully permissible alternative.” Molly subsequently resigned to take a position in Houston.
James Dodson, a former director of the water department, told ICN that the city had “turned down repeated opportunities to develop groundwater import projects” while maintaining a singular focus on desalination. Sean Strawbridge, former CEO of the Corpus Christi Port Authority, cited the city’s “lack of experience, their lack of knowledge, their lack of recognition of the risks,” adding, “Time is up.”
The canceled project involved a significant state investment. The Houston Chronicle reported $235 million in direct state funding and more than $700 million in low-interest loans approved by the Texas Water Development Board through the State Water Implementation Fund. Speaking at an event in Manor, Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott (R), whose appointees serve on that council, said Tuesday that the city failed to meet the pledge. “You know what they did? They wasted it and then they changed their plan, and then they were indecisive about what to do.”
Abbott went further, issuing a direct ultimatum. “What Corpus leaders have to do is make a decision,” he said. “We can just give them a little more time before the state of Texas has to take over and micromanage this city and run it to make sure that every resident who goes to the faucet and turns it on, gets water from the faucet, not because of what local leaders are doing, but because of what the state of Texas is going to do.”
He added that the state is “fully committed to making sure that the residents of Corpus Christi will have the water they need to live their lives like the rest of the people in the state of Texas.” ENR reached out to the governor’s office to clarify what a takeover would entail and the legal authority under which it would occur, but did not hear back.
Texas Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, told a local radio station that “locals didn’t want to pay for water, and that’s an aspect that we’re seeing play out in Corpus that we’re going to have statewide conversations about,” the Tribune reported.
Meanwhile, the city has imposed conservation measures, banning lawn watering and requiring residents to use a five-gallon bucket to wash vehicles.
Corpus City Council is scheduled to address the issue at its March 17 meeting.
