José Angel Gutiérrez ● V is for Voting, W is for Water ● Our Voices/Nuestras Voces

V is for Voting, W is for Water

José Angel Gutiérrez

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voiceofthemainland.blogspot.com/voces-index

Come November 3, 2026 which will come first to residents in and near Corpus Christi, Texas, voting or water? In the alphabet, the V comes first before the W, but in this case, I think the W will trump the V. Corpus Christi, reportedly by the media, is running out of water that month! Surely, the people in Corpus will be thinking more about access to water than of voting to change the politicians in the various governments on the ballot. There will be many columns with many candidates like for US Senator, US Representatives, Governor and other top state officials, the state legislators both Senate and House, and the local County officials.

In fact, much of Southwest Texas from north of Del Rio and San Antonio downward near Laredo over Cotulla down to Zapata County is in near drought conditions. But most of these cities in that area have contingency plans. The San Antonio Water System (SAWS) for example, has 7 sources of water and 13 projects that supply them the need water for its 2 million population in the metro area. SAWS needs about 85 to 102 billion gallons of water per day. It loses some 7.2 million gallons per day due to leaks and breaks in the 112 miles of pipeline to move their water to them from it various sources and projects. Austin and Houston face the same problems of impeding water shortages in the near future. Now you know why we have turned to buying bottled water at good prices. Many countries now mostly rely on bottled water and the US is getting there as well. Because of persons like Boone Pickens, multimillionaire, who has bought up most of the land in Roberts County, Texas, some 150,000 acres at last count by Texas Monthly (August 2001) That plot of land is just 70 miles northeast of Amarillo and lies completely over the Ogallala Aquifer, the largest single ground water source in the US. He plans to sell that water to those who need it. I wonder who does not.

Why not pump somewhat fresh water out of the Mississippi River? It could be allocated and dispensed across the various contiguous states instead of it emptying out at New Orleans into the Gulf of Mexico. Once in there it becomes salty sea water. The longest freshwater river in the world is the Nile and that like the Mississippi could be allocated and used by those next to it.

The Amazon is another freshwater river as is the Rio Grande. This river is mostly freshwater beginning at its origin in Colorado and emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Boca Chica, Texas now owned by Elon Musk. Yes, the entire city is owned by him for Space X and it is right next to Brownsville. Space X and its residents need at least 358,000 gallons per day and for 200,000 of those gallons they are seeking a state permit to mix treated waste water and left over coolant with toxic chemicals to meet their current needs. Brownsville needs 207,000 gallons per day for its 190,000 residents and they take it mostly from the Rio Grande. However, by the time the water from that river reaches them, thousands of gallons have been taken by growers for irrigation, and thousands more gallons of waste water have been emptied into the river along the way from Colorado to Boca Chica. The hundreds of colonias adjacent to the river dump their waste into the Rio Grande and take water from there at the same time. Try driving at any border town at night and take a deep breath to get the whiff of the polluted river. Mexico and the US also have a treaty to share the water and that reduces the amount that reaches Brownsville.

Corpus Christi already has been facing a shortage of drinkable potable water for some time. The city needs 60 million gallons of fresh water daily. They only are getting 12 million gallons daily from emergency wells. They are also getting another 16 million gallons of recycled treated wastewater. That is still only 28 million gallons of somewhat drinkable water. They had two projects underway to produce good water, the Evangeline and Harbor Island. The Evangeline will produce 11 million gallons by this November then up to maximum of 27 million when in full production still years away. The Harbor Island project will not get going until 2029. The city officials began looking into a desalination project given the Gulf of Mexico is their front yard so to speak. The state kicked in some $235 million dollars for that and offered a loan of $757 million to get that process going. Ultimately, the city rejected desalination. They are banking on the Harbor Island project with the Nueces River Authority (NRA) to get them and the residents of the Coastal Bend area, 100 million gallons per day. That project has a potential expansion to reach production of 450 million gallons per day. So, why do we all earthlings not turn to desalination projects to ensure drinkable water almost forever? On earth only 29% is land, the other 71% are oceans full of salty sea water. It is expensive and difficult to pipe across the country.

There is an estimated cost of about $2 to produce a desalinated cubic meter of drinkable water from the oceans (264 gallons). That gallon figure is about how much 2 persons go through per day at home. The International Desalination Association (IDA) reports of some 13,000 desalination plants in the world producing some 14.7 billion gallons of drinkable water; many are in the Middle East where crude oil is more plentiful and cheaper than fresh water. Tampa., Florida is building the largest desalination plant in the US at this time. You can boil seawater or use reverse osmosis to get fresh water. But the reverse osmosis process also begins to kill sea life. Dumping the, tons of left over salt from desalination back into the ocean also negatively impacts the ecology of the ocean by over salination. There must be more research and effort and funding made available to produce more fresh drinkable water. We cannot live without it.