'Dire catastrophe': Corpus Christi could be close to running out of water

[Nevilledog]

https://www.expressnews.com/news/article/corpus-christi-collapse-of-water-supply-21963019.php

No paywall link
https://archive.li/RS9IJ

CORPUS CHRISTI — The imminent depletion of water supplies in Corpus Christi threatens to cut off the flow of jet fuel to Texas airports and other oil exports from one of the nation’s largest petroleum ports, triggering potential shock waves through energy markets in Texas and beyond.

Without significant rainfall, Corpus Christi is headed for a “water emergency” within months and total depletion of the system next year, according to the city’s website.

“The impacts are going to be felt tremendously through the state, if not internationally,” said Sean Strawbridge, former CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, the nation’s top port for crude oil exports. “This should be no surprise to anybody. We were talking about this over a decade ago.”

Other current and former officials, alarmed at what they call a lack of preparations, have suggested the potential for an economic crisis involving mass layoffs, disruption of fuel supplies and billions of dollars in emergency spending to avoid an evacuation of the city.

Strawbridge, who now lives in Houston, laid the blame on city leaders, citing “their lack of experience, their lack of knowledge, their lack of recognizing the risks” in a decade-long endeavor to build a large seawater desalination plant that would steer the region away from calamity.

*snip*

[RT Atlanta]

1. republican built infrastructure in TX

my sympathies to the good Democratic people who live in that state

[lame54]

2. That wouldn't happen in the Gulf of Mexico

[msongs]

3. ken paxton to the rescue, right? right behind gov. abbot

[dalton99a]

4. Fucking morons pulled the plug on a desalination project

The region’s largest industrial users, which consume the majority of the region’s water, remain exempt from emergency curtailment. These multi-billion-dollar refineries, petrochemical plants and liquified natural gas facilities are built to run at a steady rate and can’t throttle down production in accordance with water availability. They consume large volumes of water primarily in cooling towers to prevent excessive heating and explosions.

The city may enact across-the-board, pro-rata curtailment at will, said Winkelmann. He assumed his role in September when the city’s then-water director, Drew Molly, resigned days before the City Council pulled the plug on its long-running desalination project.

[democratsruletheday]

5. meh...maybe all the Repukes they elected down yonder can figure it out

but I kinda doubt it

[hatrack]

6. And the city "government" never met an oil refinery or industrial user they wouldn't pledge all the water on earth to.

EDIT

The oil and gas industry wanted to build enormous projects in the region, processing oil and gas from Texas’ shale fields into myriad fuels, chemicals and plastics before loading them onto tankers for export. In March 2017, then-city manager Margie Rose sent a letter to ExxonMobil, the world’s largest private oil company, that said, “because the City aggressively protects water resources for the future by implementing a matrix of supply strategies, we feel that we have sufficient water supplies to meet your needs.”

Six days later the city requested funding from the Texas Water Development Board to study feasibility and do preliminary design of a seawater desalination plant. Around that time, Strawbridge said, “it became very clear to the port authority that there was a difference of opinions as to how much water was available and how much would be needed to continue to attract large industrial investors.” “The city felt that it had enough water to last, based on its forecast, until 2040,” Strawbridge said. “We, the port authority, had a very different view of what that demand curve looked like.”

That’s when the port began developing plans for its own desalination plant, he said. In 2018, a new, interim city manager, Keith Selman, promised another large volume of water to Steel Dynamics, which then built a steel mill in the area.

EDIT

“Let the shit hit the fan,” said Serna. “Let dog eat dog.” What does he think will happen to Corpus Christi? In time, he said, the refineries and chemical plants will probably build their own water projects, somehow, and possibly restart their facilities that they will have to mothball in the meantime. For residents, he said, life might be like it used to be for him, 70 years ago, as a boy in the Rio Grande Valley, when he would hang plastic jugs on mesquite branches and carry them on his shoulder to ask nearby companies for water. “This is the legacy of the imbeciles,” he said.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08032026/after-a-decade-of-missteps-a-texas-city-careens-toward-a-water-shortage-catastrophe/

[miyazaki]

7. Many there were probably convinced that climate change is fake news by

President Grab Snatch himself.