Water Bankruptcy in Corpus Christi

Corpus Christi is facing water bankruptcy. Without significant rainfall (30 inches this summer), Corpus Christi is headed for a “water emergency” by fall and will reach a point next year where city supply can no longer meet demand. Corpus Christi with reach  "Day Zero” the specific day a city's municipal water supply is projected to run out . On this day, authorities must shut off taps to homes and businesses, leaving residents to collect a limited daily water ration. Though, Corpus Christi actually has no operational ability to do this.

Residents have been living under Stage 3 water restrictions since December 2024. These restrictions ban lawn watering and limit most outdoor water use to specific days and hours. City officials have warned that a formal water emergency could be declared later this year. This emergency stage would require mandatory reductions not only for residents, but also for major industrial and commercial water users.

from City of Corpus Christi

A NASA analysis released in January showed satellite images comparing October 2021 to October 2025 highlighting the shrinkage in both Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi, the two primary water sources for more than half a million residents across the Coastal Bend.

from NASA

According to NASA, Choke Canyon Reservoir dropped from 47 % capacity in 2021 to just 11% in 2025. Lake Corpus Christi fell from 87% to 14% over the same period. Combined storage fell to 10 % as of January 20, 2026. As of March 13^th, 2026, the combined storage levels of Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi are at 8.7% according to the City of Corpus Christi water dashboard.

City officials also noted that portions of that remaining water may not be fully usable due to sediment accumulation and arsenic that can damage filtration and treatment systems. A regional drought that has slowly intensified over several years has contributed to the problem, but according to an article published in Inside Climate News, two large industrial users in recent years have drained the reservoirs.

Exxon’s plastic plant started operations in 2022 and consumes 25 million gallons of water per day. This water use was approved despite the region’s water plan projecting that the region would exceed water supply.  Corpus Christi then approved another 6 million gallons of water a day to Steel Dynamics, which then built a steel mill in the area and came online a few years ago.

There really was not enough water, but Corpus Christi had been discussing desalination for years. In 2016 many local politicians and staff traveled to Israel where they toured the world’s largest seawater desalination plant and met with Israeli officials to discuss desalination.

Later that year, an industry group hosted an event in Corpus Christi. They proposed desalination plant they would produce 10 million gallons per day, cost $140 million and take two years to build, the presentation said. It would begin supplying water by the start of 2023. The Corpus Christi City Council was on board, but only preliminary proposals were produced. By 2020 the size of the proposed plant had doubled.  In the beginning of 2024, Corpus Christi City Council produced a new cost estimate the proposed desalination plant of about $550 million to produce 30 million gallons of freshwater per day. A subsequent cost estimate put the project at nearly $760 million. Then in July 2025 the cost estimate was raised to $1.2 billion and still no plans or drawings were generated. Two months later, Corpus Christi City Council voted to cancel the project . For more details read the excellent Inside Climate New article and the City of Corpus Christi water news.

Meanwhile, the City of Corpus Christi under threat from Governor Abbott to take over their water operations has rolled out a series of long-term measures, including the development of wells, the purchase of groundwater rights, and evaluations of future desalination capacity. None of which seem likely to meet demand in time.

Following the Inside Climate News article publication, Corpus Christi officials denied immediate "Day Zero" scenarios.  The situation, driven by a 4 year-long drought and high industrial demand, has prompted new modeling efforts that are suggesting that indeed critical, low-level water conditions could emerge this year. There simply is not enough water.

Corpus Christi is bracing itself for a level one water emergency where the city’s plans call for an immediate 25% curtailment of water consumption. The city has not yet determined how they would implement it. Also, Climate News reported that the region’s largest industrial users, which collectively consume most of the the region’s water, remain exempt from emergency curtailment. The city denies that the industrial users are exempt, but that remains to be clarified. These multi-billion-dollar refineries, petrochemical plants and liquified natural gas facilities are designed to run at a steady rate and can’t simply throttle down production in accordance with water availability. Water is consumed primarily in cooling towers to prevent excessive heating and explosions. Not really something you want to throttle back.