Campos, Araiza: Support the Fair Water Amendment

When Corpus Christi is in a drought, we’re all asked to do our part. We let our lawns turn brown. We wash our cars with a bucket. We pay more on our water bills, and pay fines if we use too much.

But for nearly a decade, our city’s biggest water users have been allowed to skip out on doing their fair share. Proposition B, the Fair Water Amendment, would change that.

Prop. B does two simple but important things. It ends the program that lets a handful of large industrial water users buy their way out of drought surcharges. And it requires those plants to pay the drought surcharges the City Council itself approved last year.

Why does this “exemption” program even exist? Because in 2018, the City Council passed an ordinance allowing the biggest industrial water users to pay a small year-round fee – 31 cents per 1,000 gallons – in exchange for never facing drought surcharges or curtailment requirements.

The program purposefully benefited industry, and the fee was dedicated to funding the proposed industrial Inner Harbor desalination plant. Eight years later, that plant’s estimated cost has grown from $140 million to as much as $3.6 billion, while the fee generates only about $6 million per year.

But the “exemption” program isn’t just failing to meet its purpose, it’s actually hurting Corpus Christi. Prop. B will make our city stronger for four reasons.

First, it will save water when we need it most. When the biggest users must pay more for using more, they have a real reason to conserve. During our most recent water crisis, residents cut back. The big plants, which use over 60% of our water, didn’t.

Second, it will bring in real money for drought response. In Stage 3, the industrial surcharge is $6 per 1,000 gallons – about 20 times the exemption fee. A recent analysis by Chisme Collective showed that Corpus Christi Water could have collected over $310 million in industrial surcharges in 2024 and 2025, but instead collected $12 million in exemption fees.

Third, it protects our economy. Every business here, big and small, needs a reliable water supply. When the largest users conserve like everyone else, water lasts longer for all of us.

Fourth, it’s fair. In a water emergency, a family or small business that uses too much water can face extra charges. A refinery, petrochemical plant, or AI data center should not be able to pay a small fee to avoid the same.

Some say Prop. B ties the City Council's hands on surcharge rates. But Prop. B only sets a floor, not a ceiling. The council can still raise industrial surcharges whenever it needs to, it just can’t lower them below the rates it already approved in 2025 without asking voters first.

Others say ending the exemption fee will raise water rates for residents. But Prop. B has no impact at all on residential or small business water rates. Industry keeps paying the fee until 2031, so nothing is lost before the program ends. After that, during drought stages (which Corpus Christi has been under 87% of the time over the past 5 years), surcharges will bring in far more than the fee ever did.

And residents are already paying more than our share. The city's own rate models show families and small businesses have paid more than $100 million to cover the cost of industrial water.

Enough. The City Council could have ended this unfair, ineffectual program at any time over the past eight years but didn’t. Now, thanks to a citizen-led petition drive that gathered over 12,000 signatures, voters have the chance.

Ultimately, Proposition B asks just one thing: when water runs short, should everyone do their share? If your answer is “yes” then your vote should be “for.”