CORPUS CHRISTI — City Manager Peter Zanoni announced two new developments on Friday that he said will help buy the city at least two more months before reaching a potential water emergency that would trigger limits for residents and businesses.
The city got approval from the state earlier this week to continue pulling around 40 million gallons of water a day from Lake Texana, one of the city’s three main reservoirs, even if it falls below 50% — a level that normally triggers an automatic 10% reduction in the amount the city can pump.
The special approval, Zanoni said, is critical for the city to continue providing water for its more than 317,000 residents.
Additionally, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality gave the city a permit to pull water from wells in Nueces County. The city had already drilled four wells that were ready to pump as soon as they secured the permit.
On Thursday, a day after securing the permit, it began pumping out 4.5 million gallons a day from them.
Last week, Gov. Greg Abbott sharply criticized city leaders’ “lack of ability to make a decision” to solve the looming water shortage and threatened state intervention. Abbott then asked the TCEQ and the Lavaca-Navidad River Authority to fast-track permits and relax regulations to help the city quickly secure more water.
These two developments will bring the city an additional 8 million gallons of water per day by the end of May, Zanoni said, calling them critical steps to help push back a citywide water emergency. But he added that they are only temporary solutions.
“We have to get more water supply,” he said, adding that the city should have “two to three times” more water than they currently have on any given day.
A yearslong drought and a recent boom of refineries, natural gas export terminals and other industrial facilities along Corpus Christi Bay has led the city to the edge of a historic water shortage. Two of the city’s three main reservoirs have shrunk to below 10% of capacity and the city projects they could run dry by May.
That led to city projections that it could reach a water emergency — when the water supply is projected to last just 180 days — as early as May, which would trigger drastic water reduction efforts.
With the approval to keep pulling large amounts of water from Lake Texana and the permit to operate the four additional wells, the city has pushed that to at least July, Zanoni said Friday.
But Zanoni cautioned that water levels at Lake Texana are also dropping.
“Beginning about last fall, Lake Texana also now began moving into an extreme drought category, so there has been very little inflow into the reservoir,” he said, adding that the current drought “is probably going to be the drought of record — this thing is real bad.”
The lake is currently at around 53% capacity, and Zanoni said the city expects it to drop to 50% in April, which would have triggered the 10% reduction that would mean about 4 million gallons less water per day for the city.
With permission of state leaders and Abbott, the city can continue pulling water from it “for now” because of the city’s imminent water crisis, Zanoni said.
“That will give us several months more supply at the full amount, helping us here in our drought,” Zanoni said.
Zanoni also announced that the city has formed a 19-member advisory group that will work with a Round Rock-based consulting company, Spheros Environmental Group Parent Inc., to help the city develop long-term water plans.
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