Written by Peter Kotara
The City of Corpus Christi, Texas, is facing an emergency water shortage that threatens the city’s citizens, its robust oil industry, and the Texas economy at large. City models show water is set to be depleted in late 2026 or early 2027, unless serious action is taken to boost the water supply.
Governor Greg Abbott said, “We’re fully committed to making sure the Corpus Christi residents are going to have the water they need … we can only give them a little more time before the state of Texas has to take over and micromanage that city.” The governor has taken such an interest in the crisis because, if unmitigated, it could devastate the Texas economy.
Corpus Christi is the fifth-largest port in the United States and handles over 60% of total US crude oil exports. Water is used extensively by the oil industry as well as refineries that provide jet fuel to the state’s many airports. Without the reservoirs that fuel the region’s industries, the local economy would face an economic disaster that leads to mass unemployment.
So why has the crisis reached this point? It began with a large shale boom that fueled the oil industry, and with the expansion of the industry came a higher demand for water. To fulfill this requirement, the city planned to build four large desalination plants, which would take in seawater and remove the salt so that industries and the general population could use it.
Here’s where the problems began. Local politicians struck a deal with Saudi Arabia and Exxon to build a large plastics plant that consumed as much water as all the residents of Corpus Christi. The plant would need water supplied to it by 2023, but the desalination plants that would have provided it were not built.
This was a case where the government sold water it did not yet possess. It was an easily fixable mistake if the city could manage to build the planned desalination plants. However, this effort was sabotaged by a formidable force—the environmentalists.
Various environmental groups launched a NIMBY (Not in my backyard) campaign in Corpus Christi against the construction of the desalination plants, arguing that the concentrated brine produced by them would harm local wildlife.
The effort included local groups like the NAACP Hillcrest, but it was spearheaded by large national groups like the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, and the Surfrider Foundation.
Earthjustice filed federal civil rights complaints claiming the plant constituted “environmental racism”, while Surfrider demanded all desalination plants use only “renewable resources” and that the city pursue alternatives such as limiting water consumption instead of building the plant.
The environmentalist coalition got what they wanted, and years later, Corpus Christi has failed to construct the desalination plants. The environmentalists won by convincing people to fight against constructing desalination plants while conveniently leaving out the necessity of the plants. While they caused legal and political problems for the desalination plants, the city’s water reservoirs drained.
This left the city with only bad options: shut off water to industry, destroying the economy, or severely limit water for people, making life miserable for residents. The environmentalists took a dangerous situation and forced the city into the worst possible outcome. Now, everyone is scrambling to find a solution before the water runs out.
Why would environmental groups want this outcome? The answer becomes clear when scrutinizing who is really behind these efforts. Organizations like the Sierra Club aren’t funded by ordinary people. According to watchdog organization InfluenceWatch, the Sierra Club is funded by far-left dark money groups like the Tides Foundation. The Tides Foundation is a funnel for money from George Soros, the infamous progressive billionaire known for funding violent, radical left protests.
Soros and other left-wing extremists aren’t interested in ensuring that the people of Corpus Christi or any other city have enough water or jobs—only in molding society to fit their ideological worldview. The water crisis is a cautionary tale of how the left manages to destroy America’s prosperity and resources by convincing people to accept causes that they don’t know will harm the future.
