Texas Standard

The water crisis in Corpus Christi has been on the minds of many Texans for the past few weeks. But in the city itself, officials have been dealing with drought and increased demands for water for years. On April 3, David Brown spoke with Corpus Christi city manager Peter Zanoni about how the city plans to beef up its water supplies, the state’s role and why no water emergency has been declared. This is an extended version of the interview that appeared on the radio show.

The full transcript of this episode of Texas Standard is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.

Shelly Brisbin: I’m Shelley Brisbane for the Texas Standard. The water crisis in Corpus Christi has been on the minds of many Texans for the past few weeks, but in the city itself, officials have been dealing with drought and increased demands for water for years. On April 3rd, David Brown spoke with Corpus Christi, city manager Peter Zamo, about how the city plans to beef up water supplies the state’s role and why the city hasn’t declared a water emergency.

This is an extended version of the interview that appeared on the radio show.

David Brown: I know you’ve been in this role since 2019, about seven years back then. What were the conversations like at the local and state level about the water issues facing, uh, Corpus Christi?

Peter Zanoni: You know, back then our Westin reservoirs, uh, were in pretty decent shape.

And so the focus really was, uh, was bringing on an additional water supply, seawater, desalination. Uh, but it was, it was done in a more, uh, the conversations were more in a relaxed atmosphere. Mm-hmm. Uh, there was no, the, the drought, um, that we have gone through now for the past five years, uh, was not existing then.

And, uh, the city for decades had relied on those Western reservoirs and, um, and had treated the region well, uh, I would say up until this past route. And so the focus then was, was, uh, one that had started many years prior to 2019.

David Brown: Yeah.

Peter Zanoni: And that was bring, bringing on a what then they described, and we still use it, a drought proof water supply or water source.

Uh, seawater. Desalination.

David Brown: Uh, what happened to that idea for a desal plant?

Peter Zanoni: Yes, sir. So, uh, the, you know, the councils, our, our council term limits here are two years. And, um, and to, to, and policy concepts and ideas and directions have changed just about every two years. Uh. It’s hard to,

David Brown: hard to get, get your feet in on a project like a desalination plant when you’re changing the players every two years.

It, uh, it sounds like,

Peter Zanoni: right? Yeah, that’s correct. This is a, this is a big project. It, it, it is expensive, uh, and it has a, a rate impact. And, um, and so if you have a new council member coming in, it takes time to reeducate or educate on the project. On the,

Shelly Brisbin: yeah.

Peter Zanoni: Financials, on the impact on this, uh, on the water, the benefits of the water.

It’s still here. The Inner Harbor Desalination project is still live, so to speak. Uh, we have mm-hmm. Uh, another, another vote coming up here in April.

David Brown: Yeah.

Peter Zanoni: That would, that would award a design contract to the second bidder in our most recent solicitation process to get a design. There, uh, to construct the plant,

David Brown: but concerns have certainly spiked in recent weeks.

Uh, there have been, uh, several stories that have reported on how Corpus Christi is, uh, months away from a full on water. Catastrophe and, and the main sources for water for Corpus Christi had fallen below that, you know, 10% mark. Uh, and a lot had been changing over those years since you first took office.

There were a lot more, there’s a lot more industry that had come to Corpus Christi. When did the alarm bell start ringing in your office?

Peter Zanoni: Yeah, and I would just correct that the, you know, there’s been some, some additional industry. There’s a con, there’s a notion out there that all of a sudden we added a ton.

We added tons of refineries and petrochemical plants. Um, if we look at our city, the, the main refiners that are here, the three to four have been here for decades. Uh, now we, we did agreeably add a few more. Industrial customers, uh, that are in the petrochemical space. Uh, but it, it, it is known and it should have been known to the leaders of, uh, of the city that we have a, a, a large industrial complex that uses a lot of water.

And that really hasn’t changed substantially since I’ve been here or in the last decade, say. Mm-hmm.

Shelly Brisbin: Mm-hmm.

Peter Zanoni: So we’ve known us here. Uh, I think, I think the, the bigger issue is, is the lack of commitment. To be focused on bringing on alternative water supply projects, diversified alternative supply projects.

It has been over 30 years since the city invested in a new water source. We built infrastructure, but we haven’t bought any new water sources in 30 plus years. It’s been 33 and 34 years since water sources.

David Brown: Well, I think that that was what was driving a lot of the, the reporting on this, that, that it seemed like this had been mismanaged.

That, you know, as you say, Corpus Christi has known about this for decades, and yet something like that desalination plant has not moved substantially forward. Uh, that there weren’t alternative sources. Serious alternative sources. Do you feel like it’s been mismanaged?

Peter Zanoni: I take it, I take it, uh, I don’t know if mismanaged is the right word.

I think there’s been a lack of, of a direction. Uh, and um, and, and it takes time and we’ve, I’ve been working on it for the past seven years, so I think there’s been a lack of directions. There’s been a lack of commitment. And some of that comes just by the nature of how our governance structure works, which is a city council elected, um, by the populace that have two year term limits.

And it, and it makes it tough to, to understand the concepts that have to be approved under, uh, to understand the policy direction of how the city’s trying to move forward.

David Brown: Yeah. Governor Abbott when he, when this appeared on their radar screen in Austin, he seemed to be pretty agitated. He was threatening to take over the city of Corpus Christi and try to manage this water crisis from that point.

Where do coordination efforts stand with the state right now?

Peter Zanoni: Right. So the state has been a, an extreme partner in helping us through this route of record and in bringing on seawater desalination. So the Texas Water Development Board, um, has ranked our inner harbor desalination project as a, as a, like a number two, number three ranked project amongst,

David Brown: mm-hmm

Peter Zanoni: many in the state and have secured funding the lowest interest loan funding.

From their portfolio, uh, for $757 million. The environmental agency, TCEQ, especially in recent times in these recent months, has helped expedite permits for groundwater projects. Governor Abbott and his team have directly helped. And we, we thank him, uh, we’re, we’re grateful for him and we understand his position, which is he is very much a business leader in the state making this state, Texas, one of the leaders in, in business development.

And to have that, you need predictability and you need, uh, you need predictable business models. And we, we can’t be in this position where we are not sure if we’re gonna have enough water to make it through a particular. Uh, calendar year. And so we understand where he is coming from and he has been helping tremendously and we’re, and we’re grateful for, for that.

David Brown: Do you, do you, do you feel like the relationship is, is positive or is, is it a little contentious?

Peter Zanoni: Well, from my standpoint, I’m not an an elected official, so I think it’s very positive ’cause he is working, he and his team are working directly with me, the city manager. Mm-hmm. And, and, and our team here.

David Brown: Mm-hmm.

Peter Zanoni: Uh, we have, uh, calls into his office two, sometimes three times a week.

David Brown: Wow.

Peter Zanoni: And there’s no, there’s no, there’s no confrontation. The very positive, very professional, uh, dialogues that we have.

David Brown: I want to ask about something. Uh, recently you started doing weekly briefings for the city’s residents who were seeing these headlines.

Very concerned about, um, the description there that Corpus Christi, you know, might run out of water. You said at that first briefing, we will never run out of water. Um, right. And I, and I, and, and I’m wondering if you can clarify that, is do you really believe Corpus Christi will, will. We’ll never run out of water.

You have enough water to meet demand for the foreseeable

Peter Zanoni: future. No. Uh, well, a local resident who, uh, was commenting on that, um, uh, recently saying how would he know? You know, but that, that statement comes from, uh, mis, I think a misleading headline that said Our two Western reservoirs are about to run out of water and therefore the city will run out of water.

And so we do have somewhat of a diversified. A surface water program where, uh, we, we, we get water from our two Western reservoirs and water from East Texas today, 70% of the water that we have here in this region comes from East Texas, from Lake Tana and the lower Colorado River. Those areas are, are, while in, while in an emerging drought generally get better rain chances than here.

So as long as that supply is decent, the city will never run outta water. Uh, we, we, we may be in a circumstance where we can’t meet the daily demand. Uh, but through demand curve reduction, uh, we can still provide water, uh, for, for all of our classification and cust of customers.

David Brown: You, you mentioned if you get the rain, but it’s, it’s, it’s very possible y’all might not get significant rainfall through the end of the year.

What then?

Peter Zanoni: Well, so we have, uh, we have several diversified projects that are coming online and, and are online and, and more water will be coming online through them. Those include three groundwater projects in this county. Mm-hmm. And Oasis County.

Shelly Brisbin: Mm-hmm.

Peter Zanoni: And then a 24 million gallon a day project in the adjoining county of the adjacent county in San Francisco County.

So groundwater, groundwater, uh, the, the formations that we’re targeting is, uh, is is more secure water not prone, uh, to drought conditions like we see here now that impacts surface water. Uh, so that, that’ll be, that’ll help our supply levels and, um. And then we’ll continue to rely on Eastern sources, including low Colorado River and, and, um, and Lake Tana.

But that’s why the 10 years ago, or 10 plus years ago, uh, leaders in this community, uh, really highlighted seawater. Desalination as a best choice to mitigate effects of drought in this area is very prone to cyclical droughts. About every five years, uh, the, the region, uh, enters into a drought cycle. And that’s why I see water desalination while expensive, is really the only choice in, in a community like this to have better water security.

David Brown: Uh, is that gonna happen?

Peter Zanoni: I think, you know, as long as I’m here and pushing it, uh, I think we have a decent chance. We have, uh, our Inner Harbor project. We have a project with the Oasis River Authority in the Port of Corpus Christi, uh, on Harbor Island. We have a smaller facility that may come back on or may come online at Corpus Christi Polymer as a plastics plant that could produce about 10 million gallons in the next year.

And then we’re looking at a location on the cell side of, of our community near the Laguna Madre.

David Brown: Mm-hmm.

Peter Zanoni: It’s a power plant. A power plant that’s owned by City Public service in San Antonio.

David Brown: Yeah.

Peter Zanoni: And so that’s been a long sought after site. I think, you know, we have the state behind us, and the state has made it clear to our elected leaders here that there is no substitution for the, for the awarded funds that we have for the Inner Harbor.

We either use it there or we, we, or we, we forego it and that, and have to pay back everything we borrowed so far.

David Brown: Well, let’s talk about the short term here briefly, because from all the stories that I’ve been reading, it’s looking like within a few months the restrictions that are currently in place. We don’t see a substantial, I mean like a, like we’re talking tropical storm sized amount of rainfall.

There’s just not gonna be enough rain, uh, to cover the water needs for the city. And that perhaps, uh, within a few months, y’all are gonna need to declare a water emergency. Am I wrong?

Peter Zanoni: Uh, the, we’ve updated forecast, so it’s a little more than a few months, and we’ll have a, we’ll have a final model in mid April.

Uh, based on the, the performance of our, our most recent brought on groundwater project in Oasis County. Mm-hmm. So once we see how that is performing in terms of, uh, the quality of the ’cause, we’re discharging that water into the Oasis River that conveys it to the treatment plant. If that, uh, if our, if our water quality management plan, uh, stays in, in check, we’ll be able to.

We’ll be able to produce the amount of groundwater that we want, uh, to keep us outta that level one emergency.

David Brown: Why not just declare a water emergency right now? You see where this is trending. Why don’t just say stage one water emergency? We’ve got to do more in the meantime ’cause we don’t know where this is headed.

Peter Zanoni: Right, because we have, uh, forecasts that show new water supply coming on. And it’s happening now. It’s been happening for several, it’s been happening for months, but more aggressively now that the governor’s helped us in the last couple of weeks. And we have more in the, in the horizon. We have another big project in, in that adjoining county, San Patricia County, that comes on in November with 24 million gallons in total starting after November.

It starts with four and then ramps up to 12 and then 24. Mm-hmm. So there’s, there’s, uh, there, there are solutions even if the Western reservoirs deplete to zero or to somewhere around that depletion mark. Uh, as long as our supplies say solid, and, and as long as our new sources come online as planned, we can, we can push back or totally eliminate the need for a level one water emergency declaration.

David Brown: You don’t wanna declare a level one water emergency clearly. But what would, uh, what would that mean for residency, if you had to?

Peter Zanoni: Yeah. Right. So it would be, it’s all classifications. It’d be residents, commercial, uh, businesses, and large volume industry. It would, it would mean that we would, we would demand a, a reduction in use.

We, there would be a, an, it would be a conscious effort to drive down demand so that there would be enough supply to meet that new reduced demand. And keep our pressures up in the system. And so we, we, we don’t want to panic the community or the region. We don’t want to, we don’t wanna shut down business.

We don’t wanna halt production from our petrochemical industry here. That’s why we’re reluctant to say, Hey, let’s just call it today. Let’s just call the level one emergency today. ’cause there, there is a good chance. Uh, based on the work that we have done and the policies that the city council has approved, that we can forego or eliminate altogether the need.

And so we’re, we’re monitoring this every day of the week. And, uh, and if something seems like our plans aren’t gonna materialize, and we could call it sooner than we had to, but right now there’s no reason to do that

David Brown: and no reason to do that. I mean, it does seem like a, to a lot of folks, a heck of a gamble.

Peter Zanoni: Well, it’s, uh, you know, we, what we do know is the, the effects of, of reducing water consumption, especially in our, our petrochemical industry that is here, um, at, at our residential homes even. And at our commercial, we have a big tourism industry here, so things like hotels and the service industry. If we have to tell a region, and it’s not just the city of Corpus Christi, it’s a seven county region with over 20 communities, if we have to tell everybody.

Um, we’re gonna have to start reducing water somewhere between five and who knows what percent. Um, that just would have a devastating impact. And so it’s a calculated assessment and a strategic look at the data that we have every day and, and working with city council in our, in our partners in the region.

And, uh, and so we, we we’re gonna take it one step at a time, one day at a time with good forecasting and good and good planning. And that’s what’s guiding us right now. Is that forecasting, that, planning, that bringing on new water projects every day.

David Brown: I, I was recently in Corpus Christi and I went to the tap and I opened it up, and it frankly gave me chills because I thought, you know, I don’t know how much, you know, I’ve been hearing about these stories.

I don’t know how much I can afford to keep this going. I, I wondered, you know, about how much, you know, how long to go with the shower and all that kind of thing. Are people. Are people knowing what to do right now to save water? Do they, are, are, are people taking steps or is it, are, do people kind of feel like, well, you know, we’ve been hearing about this for as long as we can remember.

Why, why should, why should I change? My habits

Peter Zanoni: do see in our data from all residential classifications is that our residential customers have dropped demand. Substantially in the last two years. That’s probably primarily from the, uh, the prohibition on outdoor arga irrigation or outdoor landscape watering.

David Brown: Yeah.

Peter Zanoni: Uh, but our, our residential customers have done a tremendous amount of, uh, responding to this drought and have literally reduced demand, uh, in some cases up to 2000 gallons a month. So a typical household is about 6,000 a month. Our charts, our charts or analysis is showing that that demand, that demand use has dropped to four and in some cases even less a thousand gallons per month.

So they’re aware, I think more of them are, are becoming tuned in, uh, as we are, as we’re out there more, uh, in forming them of, of what’s happening. Uh, our commercial accounts are also similarly probably from irrigation use, have used, uh, less in the last two years. And then our final, and the biggest user of all our water is our industrial partners or the petrochemical industry here.

And their demand has stayed consistent. So there’s been, while they do have water

David Brown: saving, are they, are they doing enough to, are they doing enough? Are they working with you on this or should, do they need to cut back more?

Peter Zanoni: They are working with us, but they, but for them to cut back, it means they have to shut off operations.

And it’s, it’s really, it’s pretty, it’s that simple. They would have to shut off units, shut off operations, layoff employees, and cut back in production. They’re doing some, they, in a level one emergency, they would be the ones that would have to do the, the most significant, uh, water reduction use and to, to, uh, to save, uh, on, uh, on demand.

So they know that we’re working with them. Similarly, uh, with the governor’s office, we have a great working relationship here with leaders of our plants, our petrochemical, our our refineries, our, our steel plants. And we meet with them almost, if not once a, if not every other week, once a week, uh, to plan for this and to see what are they doing to reduce water consumption.

David Brown: You’ve, you’ve, uh, been very generous with your time. Let me just ask you one question sort of from the gut, and I appreciate your candor here. You think you’re gonna, I mean, from the gut, when you, you know, get up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror, you, you feel like Corpus Christi’s gonna be able to avoid a stage one emergency this year?

Peter Zanoni: I, I do. Most days, not as a day or two that I get up and I’m like, oh God, I don’t know if we’re gonna, if we’re gonna make it. But I think the data that I see. Here recently and the fact that, uh, weather patterns are changing to the benefit of this region, uh, the fact that now we do have, we’re in a season where we have our springtime rain chances and then the tropical storm, hurricane storm chances later this summer.

Plus, we’re bringing on our groundwater supply projects and, uh, and, and, um, and then ENT reuse project. So I think, we’ll, I think it’s gonna be tight, uh, but I think we can do it if we stay focused on the delivery of this water, this new water at 76 million gallons in, in new water that we’re bringing on over the next year to two years.

And if we are, if we’re, if we’re, if we’re improved, if that scenario is improved with rain, uh, then I think we have a chance.

David Brown: Peter Zoni is City Manager of Corpus Christi. Mr. Zoni, thank you so much for taking time to talk with us on the Texas Standard. Very, very grateful.

Peter Zanoni: Thank you, David. I appreciate it.

This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.