Why Corpus Christi's water crisis arrived decades ahead of schedule
Three successive water plans shortened the city's shortage timeline from 2050 to 2030 to imminent, each time tracking what planners refused to model: climate change.
A decade ago, Corpus Christi's regional water plan projected shortages by 2050. The next plan, five years later, pulled that date in to 2030.
This year's plan declared shortages imminent. The accelerating compression reflects what Texas planners consistently failed to build into their models: the real pace of climate-driven change.
Each plan reset the deadline without correcting the assumptions that kept proving wrong.
Why it mattersAny city whose water planning ignores climate projections faces the same trap, finding shortages arriving years before the schedule that kept reassuring officials.
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