How the water crisis in Corpus Christi exposed flaws in Texas ' liquid planning

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For more than a quarter of a century, Texas has carefully updated its state water plan every five years, a process designed to forecast water supply and demand 50 years into the future — and offer communities much warning about possible water shortages to do something about it.

That caution is important because water projects may take years — maybe decades — to plan, finance, and create.

For Corpus Christi and the rest of the Coastal Bend, it always came.

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That’s because the planning process is built mostly around past droughts — in fact, some local plans also rely on the incredible 1950s drought of record, the longest nationwide dry spell in history. However, some experts now contend that using historical droughts is ineffective because they are longer, more frequent, and severe, leaving doubts that the worst-case scenario from yesterday will also apply to tomorrow.

That means the models that help secure money and political will for new water projects may be dramatically underestimating both future water needs and how quickly communities could face shortages.

According to Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist at Columbia University who studies drought in North America,” We need to be planning and developing infrastructure for the climate of 2050 and the climate of 2100.”

Nowhere were the weaknesses more evident than in Corpus Christi. A report released Wednesday by Texas 2036, a nonpartisan think tank that researches the state’s long-term infrastructure, population and economic needs, found that five state water plans adopted over 25 years sent conflicting signals about whether the Coastal Bend region, which includes Corpus Christi, could face shortages in the 2020s.

At capacity of 11.8 % on October 20, 2025, Lake Corpus Christi. At the time this was the only operational boat ramp out of six in the state park. “data-large-file “https: //i0. Wp.com/www. texastribune. org/wp-content/uploads/2006-21030-Nueces-River-BB-08- jpg? ssl=1” src= “https: //i0. ssl=fit=780 %2C585. Wp.com/www. texastribune. org/wp-content/uploads/2006-21030-Nueces-River-BB-08- jpg? “alt =” Lake Corpus Christi at 11.8 % capacity Oct. 20, 2025″ resize=2000 %2C1500&ssl=1″ At the time this was the only operational boat ramp out of six in the state park. ” class =”wp-image-240328″ srcset = “https: //i0. Wp.com/www. texastribune. org/wp-content/uploads/2006-21030-Nueces-River-BB-08- jpg? w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=300 %2C225&ssl=1 300w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=1024 %2C768&ssl=1 1024w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=768 %2C576&ssl=1 768w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=1536 %2C1152&ssl=1 1536w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=2048 %2C1536&ssl=1 2048w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=1200 %2C900&ssl=1 1200w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=800 %2C600&ssl=1 800w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=600 %2C450&ssl=1 600w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=400 %2C300&ssl=1 400w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=200 %2C150&ssl=1 200w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=2000 %2C1500&ssl=1 2000w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?resize=780 %2C585&ssl=1 780w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20251020-Nueces-River-BB-08.jpg ?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes =” ( max-width: 2000px ) 100vw, 2000px”>

At capacity of 11.8 % on October 20, 2025, Lake Corpus Christi. At the time this was the only operational boat ramp out of six in the state park. Brenda Bazán for The Texas Tribune

Some projected surpluses and others deficits. None provided a clear warning that the Coastal Bend needed to expand its water supply— which relies almost completely on drought-sensitive rivers and lakes — before the current crisis emerged.

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Years of drought threatened to leave Corpus Christi and the surrounding communities without enough water to meet demand as critical reservoirs fell to historic lows this spring. Businesses and residents were asked to conserve water. Industry threatened to leave. Cities declared natural disasters, and the governor threatened to overtake.

Before summer rains eased the crisis, city leaders in March estimated that by May they could have to declare a water emergency — the point when the city has six months before demand exceeds supply.

” That’s a massive planning error from the water plans,” said Jeremy Mazur, Texas 2036‘s director of natural resources and infrastructure policy and the report’s author. What would have been the impetus to do anything to prepare for worsening conditions in the 2020s?”

Sarah Kirkle, director of policy and legislative affairs at the Texas Water Association, added that many of the state’s water models aren’t taking into account more recent drought data”. She said that the 1950s “doesn’t always equal the” worst they’ve ever seen locally.

A 2023 law allowed regional planning groups to evaluate scenarios worse than the historical drought of record. However, it did not specifically provide funding for the cost-effectiveness of updating the water plans ‘ models.

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Voters last year approved$ 1 billion on water projects over the next 20 years, but none of it is earmarked specifically to update water supply modeling. Meanwhile, half of the state’s surface water models, which drive decisions about managing river and reservoir supplies, haven’t been updated since they were created in the 1990s — updating them would cost an estimated$ 4.7 million.

There is no universal answer to the question, according to Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, who said that in order to truly be resilient to upcoming droughts, it is necessary to consider how climate change is affecting the vulnerability of particularly water supplies.

The Texas Water Development Board, which oversees the state’s water planning process and folds 16 regional plans into the state water plan, follows state rules that require the use of historical drought assumptions and says they provide the best available benchmark for engineers and planners designing reservoirs, pipelines and other infrastructure.

The board’s chief communications officer, Kaci Woodrome, said in an email that the agency does not allow groups to use more recent hydrological data the board provides to inform their planning, despite the fact that the current models may not accurately reflect more recent or severe droughts.

” Predicting the likelihood or conditions of new hydrological droughts that are more severe than the drought of record remains challenging, especially at the scale of local water supply sources,” Woodrome said. She added that water planning regions may use a more recent drought than the 1950s and that the TWDB is currently working with the state climatologist to identify regions of the state that are likely to experience severe drought or excessive rainfall.

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Planners in Coastal Bend wrote last year that they believed the area was in the midst of a record-breaking drought and that they needed to update their modeling for the 2026 regional water plan, but that there was not enough funding to do so because the state had a deadline to submit the plan.

The state granted more than$ 637, 000 for the Coastal Bend’s 2026 regional plan. If any of that money was used to update the plan’s modeling, it’s not clear if it was used. Regional planners who deal with the funding did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

As a result, this year’s plan likely understates the region’s future water shortages, according to the Texas 2036 report.

Rain eventually arrived in May, and subsequent extensive upstream flooding in July made the threat lessenable, delaying the anticipated water emergency until 2028. The combined capacity of Corpus Christi’s two main reservoirs — Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi — jumped from below 8 % in April to 42.9 % this week.

Current and recent levels at the reservoir on August 15, 2026 are displayed on a window at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department station. data-large-file = “https: //i0. Wp.com/www. texastribune. /wp-content/uploads/2006-008-20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07 jpg? fit=780 %2C585&ssl=1” src= “https: //i0. Wp.com/www. texastribune. /wp-content/uploads/2006-008-20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07 jpg? resize=2000 %2C1500&ssl=1″ alt=” A sign on a store window near Lake Corpus Christi shows current and recent levels at the reservoir on Aug. 15, 2026″. class =”wp-image-240321″ srcset = “https: //i0. Wp.com/www. texastribune. /wp-content/uploads/2006-008-20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07 jpg? w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=300 %2C225&ssl=1 300w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=1024 %2C768&ssl=1 1024w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=768 %2C576&ssl=1 768w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=1536 %2C1152&ssl=1 1536w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=2048 %2C1536&ssl=1 2048w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=1200 %2C900&ssl=1 1200w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=800 %2C600&ssl=1 800w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=600 %2C450&ssl=1 600w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=400 %2C300&ssl=1 400w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=200 %2C150&ssl=1 200w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=2000 %2C1500&ssl=1 2000w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?resize=780 %2C585&ssl=1 780w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-07.jpg ?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes =”auto, ( max-width: 2000px ) 100vw, 2000px”>

Current and recent levels at the reservoir on August 15, 2026 are displayed on a window at the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department station. The Texas Tribune’s Pete Garcia

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On August 24, lawmakers are expected to hold a state legislative interim hearing to discuss regional water planning and make suggestions to improve the water planning process.

For Mazur, Corpus Christi’s near-crisis this year is a wake-up call to state leaders: Texas ‘ planning process could fail to give communities enough warning before their water supplies reach a breaking point.

” We can’t have our policy predicated on plans that are not right”, Mazur said.

relying on previous droughts

The state water plan is built using a bottom-up approach that starts with those 16 regional water planning groups, which divide the state based on river basins and produce their plans that try to look 50 years into the future.

By the time planners in the Coastal Bend region realized that the drought that was sweeping South Texas had reached its peak, a regional drought from 2007 to 2013, they were already well into planning and well past the state’s water plan’s deadline to submit their plan for inclusion in it.

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Starting over wasn’t possible.

The Water Development Board adopted the Coastal Bend’s new regional plan in January, despite concerns by planners that the region had already entered what could be an even deeper drought.

The group didn’t have enough information to work with, according to Esteban Ramos, Corpus Christi’s water resource manager and a member of the regional group; typically, droughts are only fully analyzed after they end.

The region ended up with a plan based on modeling for a drought that it already believes has been surpassed.

In order to create water availability models around the state, the state allocated$ 12.6 million between 1998 and 2004. They’ve undergone some updates since being created — most recently in 2019 for four river basins, at a cost of$ 2.1 million.

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But half of the state’s regions still haven’t updated their models in decades — the cost to do so is estimated at$ 4.7 million.

Why is updating them so difficult? Because the state does not invest. Period. End of story”, said Carlos Rubinstein, chair of the TWDB from 2013 to 2015.

Rubinstein said that the reason the state has not consistently reinvested in modeling is because of budget cuts to state agencies like the board.

Some planners claim that a pot of money is insufficient to update their models quickly enough despite the state’s annual planning and research grants that are given to regional groups each cycle. They add that spending the state money on modernizing drought models would divert it from other important work like data analysis, forecasts, evaluating water projects and their costs, and reaching out to communities.

Regional groups have limited funds that they can stretch across a lot of competing priorities, according to Kirkle of the Texas Water Association, so updating models frequently doesn’t come out on top.

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Inconsistent water shortage signals

Over more than two decades of state water planning, the Texas 2036 report found that the plans failed to give the Coastal Bend a clear, timely and actionable warning about the 2020s water crisis— even though that was exactly what the system was created to do.

The state’s top planning tool, according to Mazur, instead acted like a malfunctioning Coastal Bend alarm, resulting in an inconsistent, “on/off” warning signal.

None of the plans projected a significant surface water shortage in the Coastal Bend similar to what cities like Corpus Christi and surrounding communities confronted this year. One plan foresaw shortages of groundwater users and water treatment facilities in the Coastal Bend, but it did not foresee shortages of surface water, which account for more than 90 % of Corpus Christi’s supply.

To someone reading the plans in sequence, the result was a kind of planning “hokey pokey”, Mazur said, because water shortages appeared, disappeared and reappeared, as did the proposed water projects intended to address them.

Out of the 50 recommended strategies for this decade recommended in the 2021-22 plan, only one — a brackish groundwater desalination plant in Alice — had been built by 2025.

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There was no consistent signal across these plans if you’re a city council member, chamber of commerce member, hospital director, school board member, or committee member, according to Mazur.

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A” Protect Hillcrest” sign opposed to a desalination facility stands in the yard of a Hillcrest residence in Corpus Christi on May 30, 2026. The Texas Tribune’s Blené Young

Now, the city is scrambling to find new water sources wherever it can as quickly as it can, drilling groundwater wells and reviving discussion of a hugely expensive seawater desalination plant — a drought-proof way to turn millions of gallons of seawater into fresh water — the City Council had killed last year. A vote on that project is scheduled for September 1st.

The city is also working on a project to recycle and reuse wastewater. But it’s unclear whether it will all be enough water to ward off an emergency down the road.

” Day zero is still coming soon,” according to Miguel, referring to Corpus Christi’s potential water shortage.

The Texas 2036 report doesn’t blame any single plan or planner. According to the report, the Texas Water Development Board and the Coastal Bend planning group adhered to the state’s regulations and used the drought assumptions that those regulations required.

The report recommends that lawmakers pass legislation requiring a” readiness phase “before each water planning cycle so regional groups can update outdated hydrological data, incorporate planning for droughts worse than historical droughts, and consider longer timelines for when water plans are produced and submitted.

Climate change’s role

Some experts claim that Texas still doesn’t fully account for the effects of climate change in its water planning despite its modeling and recent investments to expand its water supply. In a Republican-run state, the phrase itself is highly politicized and skirted around in government documents.

This is where water planning gets tricky, according to Rubinstein, former TWDB chair.

” If you don’t then take into account how technology has improved and how conditions have changed — and here’s where we get into the words nobody likes to use: climate variability and the changing climate— and you do not plug that in, then you get into trouble, “he said.

Evgenia Spears, water program coordinator for the Lone Star Sierra Club Chapter, noted that local water planning already considers factors such as population growth, industrial growth, infrastructure and land use. She contends that climate change research should be given the same consideration.

” Why would we ignore the best available science as we plan for our most precious resource? She continued.

Texas has experienced hotter temperatures in recent years, including 2023, the hottest ever recorded in Texas based on average temperature, according to data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Cook, the Columbia University climate scientist, said Texas increasingly experiences” hydroclimate whiplash,” which he describes as rapid swings between extremely dry and extremely wet conditions.

According to Nielsen-Gammon, hotter temperatures have a particular impact on the state’s water supply’s backbone, such as lakes and rivers. That was underscored in Corpus Christi, which gets more than 96 % of its supply from surface water, according to the 2022 state water plan.

Rubinstein claimed that he witnessed yet another setback in the modeling process this year. Corpus Christi draws from three major river basins — the Colorado, Nueces and Lavaca-Navidad— but he said planners had not modeled a drought that hammered all three at the same time.

So even though Corpus Christi had diversified its surface water sources — pulling water from three reservoirs in three different river basins — the drought was so broad and long that it didn’t matter.

Rows of pipe line an open field in the City of Corpus Christi’s Western Ground Water Well Field Monday, July 13, 2026. The Texas Tribune’s Pete Garcia

One of the several wells being developed by the city is located near a water well drilling rig. The Texas Tribune’s Pete Garcia

It’s not that the models are useless, Rubinstein said, but a model can only address the conditions it is designed to simulate.

If he could change one aspect of Texas water planning, Nielsen-Gammon said he would like to see a worst-case drought scenario that all regional planners could incorporate into future plans. But he recognizes that it’s a hard thing to do. Climate projections carry uncertainty, and large water infrastructure projects often cost billions of dollars, he said.

It becomes difficult to tell whether you’re providing enough additional capacity, too much and wasting money, or not enough, making yourself vulnerable, he said.

Spears, the Lone Star Sierra Club coordinator, said Corpus Christi’s dilemma” shows that communities may need a larger margin of safety as we plan for water.”

On Saturday, August 15, 2026, a fisherman cast a net at Corpus Christi State Park. With the lake&#8217, s water level up, fishermen are returning to Lake Corpus Christi”. data-large-file = “https: //i0. Wp.com/www. texastribune. . org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01. jpg? fit=780 %2C520&ssl=1” src= “https: //i0. Wp.com/www. texastribune. . org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01. jpg? resize=2000 %2C1334&ssl=1″ alt=” A fishermen casts a net at Corpus Christi State Park Saturday, Aug. 15, 2026. Fishermen are making their way back to Lake Corpus Christi now that the lake’s water level has increased. class =”wp-image-240323″ srcset = “https: //i0. Wp.com/www. texastribune. . org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01. jpg? w=2560&ssl=1 2560w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=300 %2C200&ssl=1 300w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=1024 %2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=768 %2C512&ssl=1 768w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=1536 %2C1024&ssl=1 1536w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=2048 %2C1366&ssl=1 2048w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=1200 %2C800&ssl=1 1200w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=2000 %2C1334&ssl=1 2000w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=780 %2C520&ssl=1 780w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=800 %2C533&ssl=1 800w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?resize=400 %2C267&ssl=1 400w, https ://i0.wp.com/www.texastribune .org/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/20260815-Lake-Corpus-Christi-PG-01.jpg ?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes =”auto, ( max-width: 2000px ) 100vw, 2000px”>

On Saturday, August 15, 2026, a fisherman cast a net at Corpus Christi State Park. With the lake’s water level up, fishermen are returning to Lake Corpus Christi. The Texas Tribune’s Pete Garcia

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Aug 19, 2026Hill Country Post

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