The City Council rejected building a plant to turn seawater into drinkable water because of the cost and environmental concerns. Now it’s looking at water from a different plant.
From drilling groundwater wells to recycling wastewater, Corpus Christi has launched a host of projects as it races against the clock to find more water.
The city’s water supply has been nearly depleted by a prolonged drought and a recent boon of oil refineries in the area. Locals have been limiting outdoor watering, shower time and car washes.
The city manager said the city received permits to pump more groundwater and will avoid water reductions from a shrinking reservoir for now, pushing a potential water crisis to July.
The city produces 5% of the nation’s refined products like gas and jet fuel, and experts say a serious water shortage could force production down and push fuel prices up even further.
Two out of the five projections city leaders presented Tuesday showed water shortages beginning in May. The city has yet to detail plans for how to reduce water use for residents and businesses.
The City Council will discuss the looming crisis Tuesday. One model predicted a water emergency in November. Other scenarios show that happening in May.
As Texas faces growing water challenges, the donation to the Texas Water Trust — a little-known conservation tool created nearly 30 years ago — was the first in two decades.
Residents and businesses’ demand for water could soon exceed supply. Gov. Greg Abbott said the state could step in if solutions aren’t found.
City officials expect to reach a “water emergency” within months and run out of water next year. That would halt jet fuel deliveries to Texas airports, hike gas prices and trigger a local economic disaster without precedent, former officials say.
The 3-2 vote from Hood County commissioners Tuesday came after they received a letter from a state senator saying they did not have the power to issue a moratorium.
Cleaning up oilfield pollution in arid West Texas is costly and complicated. The bankruptcy process allows companies to move on while the public pays the price.
After an industrial building boom on Corpus Christi Bay, the city is drilling wells to meet water demand, and rural Nueces County residents say their own wells are being impacted.
The Tribune’s team of data journalists produced a congressional redistricting tool, covered several education data releases, visualized the measles outbreak and more.
Panelists at The Texas Tribune Festival shared their opinions on what the state should do after voters approved a historic investment in water infrastructure.
You asked our AI chatbot about Texas’ water supply. We answered some of the questions that it couldn’t.
The bill is the latest effort from the Texas delegation that demands the U.S. get tougher with Mexico for failing to honor a 1944 treaty that in part governs Rio Grande water.
Texas voters will decide Tuesday whether the state should continue spending $1 billion a year to secure the state’s water supply. Part of that investment will be spent to find new water supply.
The state’s citrus industry is at risk, farmers say, after Mexico failed to deliver water it owes Texas as part of a 1944 treaty.
An East Texas farm sued the local groundwater conservation district that has authority over the aquifer that would be pumped. As part of a settlement, the district has voided its original permits.
No new taxes would be collected for the package that would give the state’s water department $1 billion to spend on projects like cleaning salty water, flood control and reservoirs.
Local leaders see data centers, which help power the world’s shift to artificial intelligence, as a way to keep their towns open. Residents worry their way of life — and water — is at stake.
The House refused Senate changes allowing exports to continue while the state studies its underground water supply. Lawmakers left the Capitol without reaching a compromise.
The deal allocates $1 billion a year to water projects for 20 years, which some groups estimate is a fraction of what Texas needs to save its water supply.
Gov. Greg Abbott and other leaders have called for a major investment to save the state’s water supply. How to spend the money has caused friction at the Capitol.
Senate Bill 7, which won unanimous approval, is among legislation that seeks to avert a looming water crisis as the state’s population booms.
Gov. Greg Abbott has made water a priority for this legislative session. Lawmakers will debate whether to invest more into new water supplies or repairing old, leaking pipes around Texas.
The state House and Senate have similar proposals to solve the state's water crisis, but there are stark differences on how to invest billions of dollars to resolve.
From debating school vouchers and improving the state’s water supply to reining in property taxes, the GOP-led body will look to pass its conservative priorities amid fighting within the party.
A hurricane and winter freeze devastated the South Texas industry. A lack of water is preventing a full recovery.
An annual report documents 2,870 active cases of groundwater contamination around the state. Groundwater provides more than half of the state’s water supply.
Texas agreed to take 120,000 acre-feet of water from Mexico this month, only after the U.S. and Mexico agreed to an updated treaty.
The amendment to a 1944 treaty will help Mexico catch up with its water deliveries to the U.S. and might help Rio Grande Valley farmers devastated by low rainfall.
It’s unclear how much water resides underneath this booming West Texas tourist haven. That makes conservation critical.
A yearslong dispute over exporting water to growing Texas cities offers a hint at the battles to come as the state’s population booms and water supply dwindles.
The South Texas city has hired a consulting firm for $200,000 to provide an interim director for the utility amid a restructuring of the department.
The South Texas city is the latest to grapple with aging water infrastructure, which officials suggested could have been the cause for the E. coli outbreak.
Residents at the sprawling Terlingua Ranch near Big Bend National Park will limit residents to 1,000 gallons of nondrinking water per month.
The town’s troubles started in 2018, when its water tested positive for the dangerous E.coli bacteria.
About $45 million will go to Texas towns with fewer than 1,000 residents — a boon for municipalities without a viable tax base.
Many of the solutions are costly, putting them out of reach for small towns. But the region's most populous cities are getting innovative.
The region's two major reservoirs are at record-low levels and agriculture leaders are worried the citrus industry could be devastated this summer.
Water law experts say the Supreme Court's recent decision will set a precedent for the federal government to intervene in water conflicts between states moving forward.
No one knows how much water sits beneath the desert of Terlingua. Residents worry their wells will run dry, as developers and local officials cheer the tourism boom.
A bipartisan group of Texas lawmakers are demanding appropriators withhold funds for the country until Mexico lives up to its end of a 1944 water treaty that requires it to send 1.75 million acre-feet to the U.S. every five years.
State regulators face a critical decision this week on whether to approve a permit for a new reservoir that the city of Wichita Falls says is vital for ensuring enough water for the region. But some locals are fighting the project.
With the hottest days still ahead, local leaders have declared emergencies. And farmers are lobbying for the U.S. government to pressure Mexico to release water.
The EPA set its first-ever drinking water limits for five types of PFAS chemicals, and nearly 50 Texas public water systems have reported exceeding the new limits for at least one.
Voters approved a massive property tax cut and several other measures, but refused to raise the mandatory retirement age for judges.
At stake in next week’s constitutional amendment election is $13 billion in infrastructure spending. Supporters say it’s an opportunity for a once-in-a-lifetime investment.
Egan sat down with Tribune environmental reporter Alejandra Martinez to talk about his new book, “The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance,” which explains how overuse of phosphorus is impacting the environment.
Texas has thousands of private dams, but a former oil executive’s application to build one on the South Llano River would be the first in the watershed for recreational use. Opponents fear it would harm the river’s health and encourage more private dams.
Researchers are still studying the chemical makeup of “produced water” from Permian Basin oil fields. But regulators say they’re ready to issue permits to discharge the water into rivers and creeks.
Texas Rural Funders hopes a one-stop resource for grant applications and writers could help small towns win money to fund innovation and capital needs.
Thousands of low-income, Latino residents in Texas still do not have safe drinking water. In one El Paso colonia, some residents are using solar distillation to generate water from the air.
Texans across the state are affected by declining water supplies, water infrastructure disruptions and flooding in their communities.
Following one of the hottest summers on record, lawmakers have set an ambitious target: By 2033, they want to bump up the state’s water supply by an amount equal to three of the largest reservoirs in the state.
Groundwater levels rapidly declined in rural Lee County after San Antonio began pumping the water and moving it 100 miles southwest. A Senate bill would help affected well owners.
The bill aims to create a water supply four times the size of Lake Livingston, one of the state’s largest reservoirs. But it may still be a “drop in the bucket” compared to the state’s needs.
Texas has more than 7,000 water systems. A fraction of them self-reported that they lost 30 billion gallons of water due to broken pipes and leaks in 2021.
On a daily basis, water managers in cities across the state move from crisis to crisis hoping to keep the water flowing to residents.
In a first-of-its-kind survey of public water utilities, the EPA estimates that 7% of water lines in Texas, more than 647,000, are lead based. It’s the fifth-highest proportion of lead-based water lines in the country.
The Senate on Monday passed a bill that would create a new state fund tailored for large or long-shot water supply projects, including marine desalination. The bill will advance to the House.
Voters would have the final say on whether the state sets aside billions of dollars to acquire new water sources and invest in aging infrastructure.
A survey was commissioned by the nonprofit organization Texas Water Trade and included responses from households in both rural border communities and in urban areas across Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
So far there has been an average of six boil-water notices a day across Texas in 2023.
There has already been confusion on whether “to drip or not to drip” during this week’s “big chill,” but that may no longer be an issue because several local officials are asking people in the surrounding Houston areas to stop dripping their faucets as it can cause more harm than good at this time.
Rural communities face compounding reasons they can’t improve their water infrastructure, including inflation and a lack of human resources.
For more than 24 hours, nearly everyone in the nation’s fourth-most-populous city had been asked to boil water after a power outage at a water treatment plant Sunday.
Many residents in the nation’s fourth-most-populous city heard that they couldn’t drink tap water from friends or neighbors, not from City Hall.
Millions of Houston residents are expected to be under a boil water notice until Tuesday after a power outage at a water treatment plant. At least four school districts canceled Monday classes.
Zavalla lost all water for several days. The Texas Department of Emergency Management has sent pallets of bottled water and a team to help.
Texas’ biggest single solution to providing enough water for its soaring population in the coming decades is using more surface water, including about two dozen new large reservoirs. But climate change has made damming rivers a riskier bet.
As Texas continues to battle drought, groups are trying a market-based solution to help farmers and protect what little water is left.
Citing water quality concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency may refuse to recognize a permit that Texas approved Thursday for a marine desalination plant at the Port of Corpus Christi.
The declaration covers 23 counties across the state and comes after some saw more than 10 inches of rainfall Monday.
Construction began in July to bring water to Cochran, one of several colonias along the border not served by public water systems. The project is expected to be completed by October.
“We’re on the brink. We’re teetering. It’s a balancing act. It’s a 50/50 proposition,” said Gunter City Manager Rick Chaffin.
Texas had 3,866 water boil notices in 2021, the most in the last decade. Aging water systems threaten water supply and quality — and for many small towns across the state, they won’t be cheap to repair.
The outage left about 165,000 people without water in Odessa and some surrounding areas. It has been attributed to a main line break in the city’s aging water system and comes amid a dayslong heat wave.
Rural Texas communities often don’t have the resources, technical experience, or ability to take on large amounts of debt to pursue state funds for water supply and quality projects. So, many simply don’t apply.
A report from the state climatologist finds that the state is experiencing hotter days with less relief from high temperatures at night.
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Residents said they are thankful for the free cases of water bottles being given out at the Lake Jackson Rec Center but they are still frustrated after another week of a boil water notice. READ: Lake Jackson residents asked to conserve water usage as ‘Boil water’ notice remains“It’s just everything. City Manager Modesto Mundo said they are currently in the middle of a very intensive process of water monitoring, testing and flushing throughout Lake Jackson. This all comes after a 6-year-old boy died last month from a brain-eating amoeba after coming into contact with city water. And the latest blow just Sunday -- a soldier who helped give out bottled water tested positive for the coronavirus.
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HOUSTON – The city of Lake Jackson said the ‘Boil water’ notice could remain in place for another two weeks following the discovery of a potentially deadly amoeba in the water system. “We’re trying to get out of our boil water notice,” said city manager Modesto Mundo. To complete the latest process, Mundo is asking water customers to conserve. “We need the cooperation of everybody in our community and our businesses to lower the water usage as much as possible for outside water usage,” he said. The boil water notice impacts thousands of customers, including Sandra Crumrine.
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HOUSTON – Gov. Greg Abbott issued a disaster declaration for Brazoria County in response to Naeglera Fowleri, a deadly amoeba found in water samples taken from the City of Lake Jackson. A ‘Boil water’ notice is in place for Lake Jackson as authorities continue to flush and disinfect the water system back to normal. “The state of Texas is taking swift action to respond to the situation and support the communities whose water systems have been impacted by this ameba,” said Gov. “I urge Texans in Lake Jackson to follow the guidance of local officials and take the appropriate precautions to protect their health and safety as we work to restore safe tap water in the community.”View the Disaster Declaration.