CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Ashley Ortiz spends her days surrounded by water.
At the laundromat where she works in Corpus Christi, machines hum and churn from morning to night. But at home, water has become something to watch closely.
"It's hard to learn how to conserve and not use," Ortiz said, "or remind your kids, like, don't let the water run."
For Ortiz and her three boys, cutting back on water has been a daily adjustment. And across the Corpus Christi region it's becoming a shared reality for more than half a million people.
"It's just something that you never think you would have a problem with — like one day we might be out of water," Ortiz said.
Corpus Christi, just off the Gulf of Mexico, is facing an unprecedented water shortage after years of drought made worse by climate change. The same strained system that supplies water also supports a sprawling petrochemical industry and the nation's top crude oil export hub.
Two of the reservoirs the region relies on for water — Lake Corpus Christi and Choke Canyon — were at just 7.8% of their combined capacity as of April 28.
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The city has already restricted water use for more than a year now. Lawn watering is banned, and washing cars or watering plants at home is restricted to a specific "watering day."
Dead grass can be seen everywhere. A local water park closed earlier this year.
And it's likely going to get worse.
Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni says the city is expecting to declare a "level one water emergency" in September — meaning the city's water supply could fall short of demand by early 2027.
"It's not that we would be out of water, it's that there would be a gap in supply to demand," Zanoni said.
At that point, the city will be forced to require everyone to drastically cut back on water use. A proposed plan calls for a 25% reduction across the board.
Why is this happening?
It's a combination of several things: less rain, more heat and heavy demand from the local oil refining industry — combined with years of delayed planning from local officials.
Corpus Christi relies heavily on rainfall to refill its reservoirs. But in recent years, that rain hasn't come and water levels at these reservoirs have been steadily declining after years of prolonged drought conditions across South Texas. The same can be seen across the country, in other fast-growing cities in the Southwest such as Phoenix and Las Vegas.
"The weather could shoot blanks for long enough, and eventually you can run out of water," said John Nielsen-Gammon, the Texas state climatologist.
Climate change, Nielsen-Gammon said, is worsening the problem in Corpus by causing higher temperatures, which leads to increasing evaporation of surface water.
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It's been nearly 30 years since Corpus Christi expanded its water sources, when it built a 101-mile pipeline to bring in water from Lake Texana and the Texas Colorado River — both additional surface water sources. Since then, the region's population has increased by about 13%, according to U.S. Census data, growing from about 278,000 to about 317,000.
The region has primarily relied on surface water for nearly a century, so when that runs low, the entire system is under pressure.
"Relying on just surface reservoirs in an area like ours, it's not feasible for long-term sustainability," said Dorina Murgulet, director of the Center for Water Supply Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. She added that the region needs to diversify its sources of water, "so when one is stressed, you could rely on the other."
The stress comes not just due to population growth. Corpus Christi is also a national petrochemical hub, producing diesel, gasoline, jet fuel and plastics -- industries that use a lot of water in their operations.
The city's port is one of the largest crude oil export hubs in the world, injecting more than $113 billion to the state economy while supporting more than 864,000 jobs nationwide in 2024, according to data from the Texas Comptroller's office.
The local petrochemical industry is "the lifeblood of this community," according to City Manager Zanoni, who said these companies are also at risk of being forced to scale back operations. As of now, they're using about 60% of the region's water supply.
"If they have to curtail water use [...] it means they have to turn off operations, either in part or in whole, and it's not that you can just make a little less one day," Zanoni said. "You're talking about job loss. You're talking about a real potential for economic downturn in this region.
"There'll be extreme economic impact," he added.
Zanoni acknowledged that this reality is "likely," although the city is trying to avoid that worst-case scenario. City leaders have committed $1 billion to further diversify the region's water supply.
As part of that effort, the city has moved quickly to drill groundwater wells under emergency permits granted by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, though local officials say these efforts have produced less water than hoped.
Long-term solutions such as seawater desalination, the process of turning seawater into drinkable water, and intensifying wastewater recycling are also under consideration — but those projects could take years to complete. Some of these same ideas were on the table years ago, but according to Zanoni, they were never moved forward.
'Kicking the can down the road'
Nearly 10 years ago, Corpus Christi proposed a seawater desalination plant capable of producing up to 30 million gallons of drinking water a day. But the project, planned for completion by 2028, was ultimately scrapped last year after cost estimates surpassed $1.2 billion, despite securing more than $750 million in low-interest loans from the state.
Now that local officials are revisiting the idea, Gov. Abbott has been blunt about what he views as repeated indecision, threatening a state takeover to alleviate the water issue.
"Corpus Christi is a victim not because of lack of water, they're a victim because of a lack of ability to make a decision," Abbott told reporters in March. "We can only give them a little time more before the state of Texas has to take over and micromanage that city."
Zanoni pushed back against the idea of a takeover, but didn't refute the criticism.
"You've heard about it in local government, the old adage of kicking the can down the road," he said. "The fact that the system is not robust enough for a growing region, the fact that we haven't brought on a new water supply in 30 years, the fact we've had to make substantial — in the past five years — investments because we hadn't done it for decades prior, is all the evidence you need."
The clock is ticking as city leaders attempt to circumvent a crisis that's been long foretold.
As these leaders brace for deeper cutbacks, the strain is adding to a growing sense of unease for residents like Ashley Ortiz. At the laundromat where she works, the machines are still running — for now.
But her sons have started to ask questions about the future.
"I don't have the answers," she said. "As a mother, it's like, I don't want my kids to have to worry about something that we shouldn't have to worry about."
Ortiz says she loves living in Corpus, but the worsening water shortage may push her to move out.
"I mean, we pay our taxes, we pay our stuff, and why aren't y'all doing the bare minimum? Make sure we have what we need," Ortiz said.
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