Texas environmental regulators have given Corpus Christi permission to stop releasing water from its two main reservoirs into Nueces Bay, an emergency order that took effect immediately and runs through Dec. 23. The city announced the decision Aug. 25, saying the executive director of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality — the state agency that regulates water rights and pollution — had approved the request it filed alongside the Nueces River Authority and the city of Three Rivers.
For roughly 500,000 people in the Coastal Bend, the order settles the most consequential water question the region faced this summer. It also means the bay at the end of the Nueces River will go another four months, at minimum, without the freshwater deliveries a 2001 state order was written to guarantee it.
Those deliveries are called pass-through requirements. In plain terms, when enough water is stored behind the dams, the city has to let a share of it continue downstream instead of holding it for customers. The requirement dates to a 2001 agreed order — a settlement between the state and the water suppliers — and exists because freshwater flowing into a bay keeps the water from turning too salty for the fish, crabs and shrimp that live there.
The new order suspends that obligation on a condition tied to how much water is in storage. It “allows water that otherwise would be subject to pass-through requirements to remain within the regional water supply system while combined storage in Choke Canyon Reservoir and Lake Corpus Christi is at or below 50%,” the city said. Combined storage in the two reservoirs stood at about 42 percent on Aug. 25.
The order lasts 120 days. If combined storage is still under 50 percent when it expires Dec. 23, it extends automatically for another 60 days, carrying the suspension into late February. Statewide, Texas reservoirs were 75.2 percent full on Aug. 25, according to Water Data for Texas, which tracks storage at all 122 major reservoirs — a reminder that the Coastal Bend’s shortage is regional, not general.
The decision is not final. The three appointed commissioners who sit atop the agency are scheduled to consider whether to affirm, modify or set aside the executive director’s order on Sept. 9. Until they act, it stands.
Corpus Christi filed the application Aug. 11, as The Texas Dispatch reported, arguing that the releases had become the single largest draw on a supply system already under Stage 2 drought restrictions. City Manager Peter Zanoni has made the case that two years without releases have produced no visible harm.
“What we’ve seen in the past two years is there’s been no releases. We’ve been in severe drought,” Zanoni said on Aug. 11, in remarks reported by KRIS 6. “What we haven’t seen is reports of massive degregation to the environment or fish kills.”
The Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program, a nonprofit that studies and advocates for the bay system, disputes that reading of the evidence without opposing the suspension outright. Adrien Hilmy, a project manager at the group, told the station that no fish kill does not mean no damage, and that saltier water works its way up the food chain slowly.
“Prey species for redfish for example, which are typically very resilient to changes in salinity, their prey are not as resilient,” Hilmy said.
Kiersten Stanzel, the group’s executive director, said her organization is asking for a decision grounded in measurement rather than assumption, and rejected the idea that it is picking a fight with city hall. “It’s been a little bit portrayed that we’re trying to fight the city on this,” she said. “Our job is to advocate for the Bay and make sure that it’s clear that we saw changes in salinity. We expect to see a lagged effect from these stops in releases.”
That lag is the crux of the disagreement, and it is the question the commissioners will inherit. The city says two dry years produced no measurable harm. The scientists say the harm from two dry years has not arrived yet. The commission takes it up Sept. 9.