The Texas Water Development Board, the agency that plans and finances the state’s water supply, is scheduled to vote Nov. 12 on Corpus Christi’s request to push back when it borrows $210 million in state water loans for the Inner Harbor seawater desalination plant. The request rests on a June letter written before the City Council voted Sept. 1 to reject the plant’s design-build contract.
The board’s agenda memo recommends moving the city’s 2026 loan closing of $210,045,000 to 2027 and shifting the 2027 closing to 2028, which would raise the 2028 amount from $105,020,000 to $315,065,000. The total, $760,335,000 from the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas, known as SWIFT, would not change. The memo lists $235,225,000 already closed in prior years.
The stakes are large for a city whose water supply has run short. Corpus Christi’s own water supply dashboard projects a Level 1 water emergency in September 2029. Choke Canyon Reservoir, one of the city’s main lakes, was 21.3% full on Nov. 10, according to the state’s reservoir tracker.
The only letter from the city attached to the request is dated June 18. In it, the city told the board that “on June 2, 2026, the City Council voted to delay a vote on the design-build contract for the Inner Harbor Seawater Desalination Treatment Plant Project until September 1, 2026.”
That Sept. 1 vote failed. Council members voted 5-3 against an ordinance awarding a contract of up to $78,610,000 to Corpus Christi Desalination Partners LLC for 60% design, a demonstration plant and a guaranteed maximum price, with money from SWIFT, according to the city’s legislative records. Roland Barrera, Mark Scott and Everett Roy voted yes. Carolyn Vaughn, Gilbert Hernandez, Sylvia Campos, Kaylynn Paxson and Eric Cantu voted no. Paulette Guajardo was absent. The board memo does not mention the vote.
The money at issue comes from two commitments, according to the memo. The board approved an additional $535,110,000 multi-year commitment for the Inner Harbor plant in July 2024, and the city closed on the first $10,000,000 of it that November. Last December, the board amended the schedule and extended the commitment’s expiration to Dec. 31, 2028.
The city has since looked elsewhere. On Nov. 10, Corpus Christi Water briefed the council on a proposed 30-year agreement with Seven Seas Water Group to buy 10 million gallons a day of treated brackish groundwater from wells at Chapman Ranch. The briefing projects first water about three years after a contract is signed. The plan calls for five wells drilled about 1,800 feet into the Evangeline Formation, a reverse-osmosis plant and deep injection wells for the leftover brine, according to the briefing. The city would build a pump station, about six miles of pipeline and a storage tank, and would pay for water under terms still being negotiated. No vote on that deal is on the council’s Nov. 17 agenda.
The board’s vote does not decide what the money will build. It decides only when the city may close on the loans. What happens to the $235 million already borrowed for the project, and whether the remaining commitment shifts to another supply, are questions for later. Inside Climate News reported in September that the city could have to repay state money already spent on the plant if the project does not go forward.
Corpus Christi voters ended drought-surcharge exemptions for large industrial water users on Nov. 3. The water board’s executive administrator recommends approving the schedule change, and the board takes it up Nov. 12.
Key facts
- The Texas Water Development Board votes Nov. 12, 2026, on moving Corpus Christi’s $210,045,000 SWIFT loan closing from 2026 to 2027 and raising the 2028 closing to $315,065,000; total $760,335,000 (TWDB agenda memo).
- The only city letter in the packet is dated June 18, 2026, before the council’s Sept. 1 vote (TWDB packet).
- On Sept. 1, 2026, the council rejected a design-build contract of up to $78,610,000 for the Inner Harbor plant, 5-3 (city legislative records).
- Corpus Christi Water briefed the council Nov. 10 on a 10-million-gallon-a-day brackish groundwater deal with Seven Seas Water Group (city briefing).
- Choke Canyon Reservoir was 21.3% full on Nov. 10 (Water Data for Texas).