Abbott wants residents to pay $1B for water that will serve only Big Oil

By Chris Tomlinson, Columnist March 19, 2026

Gov. Greg Abbott is correct, Corpus Christi has plenty of water for residents. What the city lacks is enough water for the massive petroleum complex owned by major corporations that refuse to supply their own.

The city of 500,000 sits where the Nueces River flows into the Gulf of Mexico and has water everywhere, but none to drink. Years of drought and development without new water sources have triggered a water emergency that could leave taps dry next year.

Public works is already spending $1 billion to bolster water supplies, mostly by drilling for more groundwater. But Abbott and the fossil fuel industry want taxpayers to pay for a $1 billion seawater desalination plant that the city cannot afford.

Corpus Christi’s argument over who should pay for corporate water needs reflects a growing debate across the country about how much taxpayers should subsidize big business. Texans are equally angry about higher electricity bills to support data centers or higher property taxes to cover incentives to attract big business.

Many Texas towns are outgrowing water and electricity supplies and must decide whether continued growth is affordable or even desirable.

Abbott has prioritized economic development and says he will seize control of Corpus if elected officials don’t do what he and the industry want.

"We can only give them a little time more before the state of Texas has to take over and micromanage that city and run that city to make sure that every resident who goes to the water tap and turns it on, they're going to be getting water out of their faucet — not because of what local leaders are doing, but because of what the state of Texas will do," Abbott said at a campaign rally last week.

City officials insist the emergency is not as dire as some claim, even though Lake Corpus Christi has dropped below 10% of capacity. The water department expects to add 17 million gallons a day to the water supply in May, but without a hurricane or two of rain, it might not be enough.

Corporate leaders, who’ve invested $7 billion in the Corpus Christi area over the last decade, are worried. Flint Hills Resources, Valero Energy Corp. and Citgo need water to make fuels.

Exxon Mobil and Saudi Aramco recently opened a massive plastics plant called Gulf Coast Growth Ventures, which has the capacity to consume as much water as all residential users combined.

State officials and industry leaders believe the solution is a desalination plant that burns natural gas to boil seawater into fresh water for refineries and petrochemical plants. City officials have discussed building one for decades, but they’ve always balked at the price tag, which taxpayers would have to cover through property taxes or higher water bills.

At a meeting in September, the city council cancelled a desalination plant contract after its cost ballooned from $160 million in 2019 to $1.2 billion last year. Experts estimated annual operating costs at $32 million, which would be paid through local water bills.

Corpus Christi is not a wealthy city, and since the plant would only serve the oil and gas industry, opponents argue that the multi-billion-dollar corporations that need the water should build it themselves.

Texas politicians have never been good about asking big business to pay full freight. Local and state governments routinely subsidize water and electricity services and provide property tax exemptions in return for investments.

Republican attitudes, though, are changing. President Donald Trump promised to force big tech companies to pay for the electricity and transmission equipment they need for new data centers. While details are still unclear, Trump recognizes that big businesses saddling taxpayers with higher prices is bad politics.

Abbott has not gotten the memo. He cut off state funding to Corpus Christi and demanded that the council reconsider its September vote. His appointees on the Texas Water Development Board have offered $700 million in low-interest loans to the city. But, again, taxpayers would have to repay those loans through higher bills or property taxes.

The City Council voted on Feb. 24 to reopen negotiations with Corpus Christi Desal Partners for a contract to build a plant in the Inner Harbor for $978 million. The council planned to review a new contract in April, but that wasn’t fast enough for Abbott.

Corpus Christi Mayor Paulette Guajardo now promises an emergency meeting to approve the plant. Residents still must figure out what to do with the tons of salty sludge the plant will produce daily.

The new plant will take at least two years to build, so it won’t ease the shortage anytime soon. But the Corpus water crisis is proof that corporate welfare is alive and well in Texas.