When Thiago Campos bought the Mr. Fancy Pants Carwash business in Corpus Christi, Texas three years ago, he wasn’t thinking about drought. He was familiar with varnishes and waxes, and enjoyed figuring out which kind of soap would best remove local dirt. 

“I’m a chemical engineer, Campos said. “I felt like the carwash matched my skill set.” But Mr. Fancy Pants, with its two locations, could soon face an existential crisis. Last week, Corpus Christi’s city manager announced that it may enter a water emergency as soon as May. The city’s two main reservoirs — Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi — are just 8.4 percent full, while the backup reservoir, 100 miles away, is 55 percent full. Without drastic cuts, the water supply for the more than 500,00 residents of the Corpus Christi area could run dry by early next year. 

“To be honest,” Campos said, “I bought [the carwash] without really understanding what I was buying into.” 

Although it might seem like the city has been abruptly pushed to the brink of disaster, experts say years of faulty planning have brought Corpus Christi to this point. Plans for the proposed Inner Harbor seawater desalination plant, which would have drawn from the Gulf of Mexico, fell apart in September as cost estimates crept up from an estimated $160 million in 2019 to $1.2 billion.

Inflation, tariffs, and supply shortages all drove the cost of construction up, but the scope of the project also expanded. Further complicating things: the plant faced pushback over environmental concerns — a study from Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi found that discharge from the plant would raise salinity in the bay and cause harm to marine ecosystems. 

Although Corpus Christi’s residents are under drought restrictions, which prohibit people from watering their lawns, the city has not asked industrial facilities to look into ways of conserving water after the plans for the desalination plant collapsed. Corpus Christi is one of the largest petrochemical hubs in the United States, and oil, gas, and other industrial facilities account for between 50 to 60 percent of the city’s water usage. One enormous plastics plant owned by ExxonMobil and Saudi Arabia, used just under 5 billion gallons of water in 2024 alone.

In February, city officials voted to restart planning for a desalination plant with a new contractor, arguing it was the only way to ensure Corpus Christi’s long-term health. But Robert Mace, a hydrologist and the executive director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, warned that even under a best-case scenario, a plant is unlikely to come online until 2028. Corpus Christi is also drilling an emergency wellfield, in an attempt to pump groundwater into the Nueces River, which feeds into Lake Corpus Christi. But it also might not be enough to prevent the city from declaring a water emergency in the coming months. Officials have stated that a Level 1 water emergency would require a 25 percent reduction in water use, but there are no clear plans how those cuts will be implemented and enforced.

The years of delays may prove catastrophic. The drought plaguing Texas has stretched out for five years now, with no end in sight. “At some point it’ll rain — hopefully, knock on wood,” Mace said. “And people will look back and throw shade on everybody that pushed the desalination project. But they’ll forget how scary things look today.”

According to researchers, this kind of crisis may be a glimpse into the future, even for cities that don’t consider themselves water stressed. “What we’re seeing in Corpus Christi is really not an isolated crisis,” said Shannon Marquez, a professor at Columbia Water Center, a research institute at Columbia University. “It’s very consistent with how things are going to unfold if we don’t start to plan.” 

Water stress is a dilemma that will affect “almost everyone,” said Sara Hughes, a senior policy researcher studying water at the RAND Corporation, a global think tank. Cities that aren’t used to thinking about water conservation, not surprisingly, tend to be the most unprepared when drought does hit. Hughes said that coastal communities will increasingly need to scramble to construct desalination plants as sea levels rise and saltwater intrusion contaminates aquifers. 

“It’s really easy to kick the can down the line,” Hughes said. “We have competing demands on budgets, it’s a lot easier to pay for something tomorrow, than to pay for what’s maybe coming next year.” Nobody wants to be the one to build a billion-dollar desalination plant, Mace explained, “and then it rains.”

Melbourne, Australia found itself in a similar situation toward the end of the country’s devastating millennium drought in 2007. The state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital city, opted to build a desalination plant, but nearly as soon as work on it began, rain started coming down relentlessly — so much rain that it delayed construction. The plant was eventually finished in 2012 but many have blamed the project for saddling the state of Victoria with heavy debts. 

When record droughts hit, public trust is critical to reducing water demand, according to Hughes. “You’re going to be asking people to monitor and engage with their water in new ways. You’re going to be asking them to support investment and get on board with [austerity].” In Corpus Christi, residents have told reporters that they feel like the city has prioritized the petrochemical industry over their lives. “The city needs to tell industry: we need to give our people water,” Hillcrest resident Mona Lytle told the Texas Tribune. “[The refineries are] getting water first, and we’re second.” 

Should Corpus Christi’s city officials eventually restrict the petrochemical industry’s water use, oil and gas executives have warned it could further raise gas prices, which are already approaching record highs as a result of the war with Iran. In the end, city officials may have little choice but to prioritize the people who voted them into office. A partial industry shut down could “maybe free up water for health and human safety,” Mace said. “I mean, they have to consider shutting down industry to avoid having to evacuate the city.” 

As for Campos, the owner of Mr. Fancy Pants Carwash, he’s worried about his business and trying to prepare for the worst. Other carwash chains, such as the private-equity owned Quick Quack chain, have faced heightened scrutiny for wasting water as the crisis has worsened. Campos is looking into whether his business could draw well water, rather than pulling from reservoirs as the rest of the city does. He’s also joined an alliance of carwash companies that works to conserve water. For the moment though, Campos feels set adrift. “I know my employees are concerned about their jobs,” he said. “Those are the facts. Everything else is speculation.”

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