At least six small cities and towns in the Coastal Bend region of Texas issued disaster declarations in the last two weeks, begging not to be forgotten amid a spiraling water crisis.
All attention lies on the city of Corpus Christi as it grapples with the growing likelihood of an unprecedented disaster. But Corpus Christi, the eighth-largest city in Texas, doesn’t just provide water to its own industries and residents. It supplies the entire seven-county region, including 20 other municipalities.
“Everyone is like, ‘What the heck is going on and what do we do?” said Elida Castillo, mayor of the small town of Taft, which issued a disaster declaration on April 21. “I’m just trying to figure out what we could do.”
Castillo recently organized a town hall meeting on the water crisis for the 3,000 residents of Taft, but officials from Corpus Christi didn’t show up. She hasn’t heard much from county or state officials either. She is getting a sense that nobody knows what to do, and she isn’t alone.
Amy Hardberger, director of the Center for Water Law and Policy at the Texas Tech School of Law in Lubbock, said most Americans can’t wrap their minds around the grave implications of empty reservoirs. Those who can feel deeply unsettled by what is happening in Corpus Christi.
“It’s not my goal for other people to be panicked,” she said. “But many of us are very scared.”
If Corpus Christi becomes the first modern American city to run out of water, it would take most surrounding communities with it. Up the coast of Corpus Christi Bay, the cities of Ingleside and Aransas Pass, with a combined 19,000 residents, issued disaster declarations on April 22.
“There should be some type of legislation that will assist us now, rather than in the future,” said Ingleside City Manager Brenton Lewis. “All these small cities that have declared disasters are looking at alternate water supplies.”
The towns of Three Rivers, Orange Grove and Alice also issued disaster declarations in the week prior.
“Regional water demand is exceeding available supply,” said an April 14 declaration from the City of Alice, population 17,000. “Continued drought conditions threaten public health, safety and welfare, as well as essential public services.”
Alice, however, expects to fare better than other communities. Last July it cut ribbons on a groundwater desalination plant, a decade in the making, owned and operated by an investor-backed water treatment company called Seven Seas.
“They have a profit margin,” said Alice City Manager Michael Esparza. “We are paying a private company to do something for us. It’s no different than we do with a lot of things. Although, this one is pretty big because it’s our water.”
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Castillo thought lawmakers focused too much on developing new water sources and not enough on conserving what they already have. For example, she pointed just five miles from Taft, where an enormous Exxon-SABIC plastics plant, booted up in 2022, uses more water than all 300,000 residents of the City of Corpus Christi combined.
Last week Corpus Christi leaders announced plans to require a 25 percent cut in water use in September for facilities like Exxon-SABIC and the other 14 large industrial users, including companies like Occidental Chemical, Valero, Flint Hills and Lyondell Bassel.
Castillo, whose family goes back generations in Taft, thinks emergency cuts should be required immediately. She said Corpus Christi leaders are prioritizing the profits of global corporations over the lives of residents here.
“They’re not taking this as seriously as they should be,” she said. “There needs to be more pressure put on Greg Abbott.”
Good luck with that. I’ve been following this story, and I have no idea what’s going to happen. I agree that these small towns are basically blameless in this disaster, and that some kind of policy that would have either restricted the water usage of these industrial sites or made them pay a fair price for using it would have been a wise thing to have a long time ago. But here we are now, with the boulder rolling full speed down the hill, and you better hope you’re not in its path. Godspeed, y’all.