When Elida Castillo drives around Corpus Christi, she doesn’t see a city about to run out of water. Instead, Castillo, who leads an environmental advocacy group called Chispa Texas, sees car washes opening; houses being built in new subdivisions; new refinery smokestacks sprouting along Corpus Christi Bay.
But the city is running out of water. If nothing changes by late next year the city will begin curtailing usage by 25%, leaving both residents and the region’s massive petrochemical industry to figure how to make do with a lot less.
The situation became even more dire in September, when city council members abruptly voted to stop work on a controversial seawater desalination plant called Inner Harbor, alarmed by the plant’s ballooning cost — estimated at $1.2 billion…