Corpus Christi has about a year of water left as an industrial plant drains supply

A Texas city of 300,000 is projected to run out of water, while a chemical complex uses as much cooling water daily as all its residents.

Corpus Christi, Texas, home to more than 300,000 people, is on track to run out of water, according to reporting from Inside Climate News. The city currently has roughly one year of water in storage. Residents have faced watering and car-washing restrictions since August 2024, and emergency measures once expected as early as December 2026 were pushed to September 2027 after 2026 rains eased the shortfall.

Demand is the core problem. A plastics chemical complex built in 2022 uses as much cooling water each day as all of the city's residents combined. Groundwater wells supply about 12 million gallons per day, and wastewater reuse for industrial cooling is set to come online in 2026. Lake Corpus Christi, the second-largest reservoir serving the city, is under strain.

Water is the most basic of sustenance needs, and a US city approaching depletion is a sharp reversal. It shows how industrial demand can outpace a region's natural supply, forcing residents into rationing while the shortfall grows. The proposed fix — a seawater desalination plant producing an estimated 378 million liters a day, twice the size of the largest current US plant in San Diego — carries a reported price tag of about $6 billion.

Watch whether the desalination project, discussed since 2017, actually gets built and funded. The timing estimates are moving targets that shift with rainfall, and the reported cost figure is not firm.

Source: ScienceAlert