Refineries and petrochemical plants in Corpus Christi, Texas, could have their water access cut off by a local utility if an emergency is declared and they don’t slash their usage by 25 percent.
Stopping service would be a last resort at industrial sites that go over proposed monthly water allotments and can’t cut back, Nick Winkelmann, chief operating officer of Corpus Christi Water, said Tuesday at a City Council meeting in the Texas refining hub.
“If that case is happening and a resolution can’t occur, then we would have to start turning valves and shut the water off to those users,” Winkelmann said.
The City Council is working to finalize water curtailment plans for all customers, but the prospect of cutting water off to industrial users in one of the country’s largest petrochemical and refining centers highlights the stark reality facing the Coastal Bend region of South Texas. The crisis also has the attention of leaders across the country as cities debate data centers and other projects that would boost water demand.
Corpus Christi Water, which is overseen by the Corpus Christi City Council, serves roughly 500,000 customers across a seven-county region. The city could enter a Level 1 water emergency by September, Winkelmann said at a meeting last month — a threshold triggered when the region has 180 days before water demand outstrips supply.
The region’s water supplies have been ravaged by a years-long drought and growing water demands from large industrial users.
To lower that demand, Corpus Christi Water officials proposed last month to require 25 percent cuts for all water users if the city declares a Level 1 water emergency. Officials tabled that proposal, directing staff to come up with changes that were presented Tuesday. The Council could vote on whether to approve those new changes in the coming weeks.
The outlook now for possible cuts looks different for residents and large industrial users.
All residential customers were given a baseline water usage of 7,000 gallons of a month under the previously proposed rules, and the 25 percent cut meant that a household would essentially be allotted 5,250 gallons of water a month.
Large industrial users, however, had their baseline water usages calculated based on their average water use from 2022 through 2024, and those baselines were adjusted seasonally, unlike residents.
On Tuesday, the City Council voted 7-2 to move forward with a proposed ordinance that would increase residents’ baseline usage to 8,000 gallons a month, or an allotment of 6,000 gallons monthly based on the 25 percent cuts. But the calculations to determine industrial water use baselines remained the same.
Changes approved on a preliminary basis Tuesday also removed steep penalties for residents that went over their water allotments. The city ordinance previously set a $500 fine for residents that violated the curtailments, and repeat offenders could have their water shut off for a billing cycle.
City Council members balked last month at the prospect of cutting off water to residents, and ultimately backed a new line to the ordinance Tuesday: “Water customers are not subject to violations, penalties, or enforcement for exceeding their baseline or exceeding their allocation.”
That reflected a sentiment that often comes up during public meetings in Corpus Christi.
“I just don’t understand why this has to be a burden on the residents of Corpus Christi,” City Council member Eric Cantu said at Tuesday’s meeting. “I mean, this is not their doing. This is not their fault.”
The newly proposed ordinance also includes monthly surcharges for all water users if they go over their baseline allocations. The surcharges are the same for all customers: an additional $4 per 1,000 gallons above their allocation, and $8 per 1,000 gallons used above customers’ baseline usage.
Winkelmann said residents could still face $500 fines or the possibility of having their water shut off if they engage in activities such as illegally watering their lawns or tampering with their water meters.
But the key to lowering demand will be cuts to industrial water usage, Winkelmann said.
Four of the region’s largest refineries and petrochemical facilities used an average of 818.6 million gallons combined a month from 2022 through 2024, according to a Corpus Christi Water presentation in April. Residential users, meanwhile, used 374 million gallons in April 2026, according to utility data.
Winkelmann said Tuesday that Corpus Christi Water is in constant communication with the industrial water users and will continue to be if curtailments go into effect.
“I feel very confident, every one of them is going to meet their allocation,” he said. “They are working very hard to do that in an effort to be a good partner.”
Bob Paulison, executive director of the Coastal Bend Industrial Association, said in an interview Wednesday that large-volume water users have been talking about what will happen during a water emergency for months, including the prospect of the city temporarily cutting off water supplies.
Those industrial users have already been working to recycle more of the water and cut back on use for “quite some time,” he said.
“Everybody’s preparing so we’ll be able to successfully work through the period of shortage,” Paulison said. “That’s the goal.”
Desalination plans
Council members on Tuesday also voted to remove from the curtailment ordinance a reference to a proposed desalination plant that has become one of the most divisive issues among Corpus Christi leaders.
The Inner Harbor desalination plant, if built, could produce about 30 million gallons a day of fresh water at a cost of more than $978 million.
The City Council voted against moving forward with a design contract for the project at a tense September 2025 meeting. But the council is poised to vote June 2 on whether to move forward with a new contractor to design the plant.
The Texas state Senate Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs Committee heard testimony about the plant at a hearing Monday.
Winkelmann told lawmakers that the Inner Harbor desalination plant is a key to the city’s efforts to diversify its water supplies and is “the most time-efficient project that we can deliver” to bring more water online.
“As a fully permitted project, this water supply project represents one of the most developed and affordable projects that we can complete in as short of time as possible,” Winkelmann told lawmakers Monday.
But several area residents who traveled to Austin, Texas, for the committee hearing raised concerns that the Inner Harbor project could wreck Corpus Christi Bay’s ecosystem.
Jason Hale, who identified himself as a local resident, said at the Monday hearing that the extra salty brine that’s released by the plant after it cleans seawater could cause the bay’s salinity levels to rise and potentially endanger marine life.
“Our bays are especially vulnerable to impacts from seawater [desalination], and those impacts would be felt by economic and recreational activities,” Hale said.
State Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican who chairs the Senate committee on water and related issues, said Monday that he had previously encouraged city leaders in Corpus Christi to spend extra money to build a pipeline that would send the Inner Harbor desalination plant’s discharge away from the bay.
That would mean sending the water to the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America.
But even without that added protection, Perry noted that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and EPA under the Biden administration gave the project a green light.
“I don’t want the public to think we’re just down here doing environmentally foolish things,” Perry said. “We don’t want to pollute air. We don’t want to pollute water.”
