Pipeline expansion, desal: Projects to bolster Corpus Christi water supply continue

As drought continues to shrink Corpus Christi’s water supply, city officials are pressing on with plans to supplement resources both in the long and short term.

Included among those are the city’s two planned seawater desalination plants, drilling water wells along the Nueces River, expansion of the Mary Rhodes Pipeline and a potential contract for desalinated water processed by a privately owned plant.

The initiatives are needed to supplement the region’s declining water supply, city officials have said.

As of Thursday, the combined capacities of Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon Reservoir measured about 17.4%, according to city data.

The combined lake capacity is how the severity of drought is assessed locally.

The city has been under restrictions for Stage 3 drought — called when the combined lake capacity slips below 20% — since December. Here’s the status of some of the city’s ongoing water projects.

Mary Rhodes Pipeline

The pipeline that delivers a portion of the city’s water supply, drawn from Lake Texana, was expanded in June, with efforts following to expand it further.

Water volume transported to the city’s reserves by 101-mile pipeline is currently 55 million to 58 million gallons per day, Nicholas Winkelmann, Corpus Christi Water director of water systems and support services, told the City Council in early March.

By the end of the month, expansion of the pipeline is anticipated to increase by as much as about 24 million gallons — totaling between 72 million and 79 million gallons per day, according to city officials.

La Quinta desalination plant

While city officials have remained focused on the Inner Harbor seawater desalination plant, a second, future site has also seen continued efforts toward eventual desalination operations.

The proposed plant, planned to be capable of producing 40 million gallons of treated water per day, would be developed in San Patricio County, adjacent to the San Patricio Municipal Water District, Esteban Ramos, CCW’s water resource manager, told the City Council in a workshop earlier this month.

The city has attained a water rights permit for the site, while a discharge permit remains under technical review, according to the presentation.

Among final steps pending is land acquisition, the presentation showed.

The property is currently owned by Oxychem, city officials have said.

Corpus Christi Polymers

City officials have been in talks with Corpus Christi Polymers on the potential for the company to supply the city with about 9.4 million gallons per day of water treated by its private desalination plant.

The plastics plant is expected to be online in about three years, CDM Smith consultant Stacy Barna told the City Council earlier this month, meaning the contract period would be about three years.

Corpus Christi Polymers’ desalination plant is about “95% complete,” a presentation showed.

It would be about nine months to a year before it would be complete, according to officials.

The option that would be most quickly pursued would be for nonpotable water that would likely be considered for industrial operations in San Patricio County, although a potable option may also be available as a longer-term strategy, Barna said.

Nueces River groundwater wells

Work is underway to drill several groundwater wells near the Nueces River, with the final goal of pumping as much as 15 million gallons of water per day, according to city officials.

Crews had initially assessed groundwater wells used by Corpus Christi decades ago to supplement water supply, but “most were found to not be viable,” a presentation made before the City Council earlier this month shows.

Test pumping on the first groundwater well is expected to begin Monday, wrote CCW Chief Operating Officer Drew Molly in a message to the Caller-Times.

Inner Harbor desalination plant

The city’s proposed seawater desalination plant — planned for development off Nueces Bay Boulevard and West Broadway Street — was awarded a discharge permit Thursday by a unanimous Texas Commission on Environmental Quality board.

The board previously granted a water rights permit for the proposed facility, which will be designed to generate as much as 30 million gallons of treated water per day.

While the city has garnered the two state permits needed for desalination operations, a required U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit has not been secured.

It is currently “in the final stages of permit review,” Molly wrote in a message to the Caller-Times.

A timeline included in a news release Thursday shows plant design continuing through this year, with construction launching in the first quarter of 2026 and the plant going online in summer 2028.

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