Rachel Denny Clow, Kris 6 News

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott responded with fury after Corpus Christi officials announced in March that this Gulf Coast region of more than 500,000 people could face unprecedented restrictions as its water supply dried up.

The state had already committed over $750 million in low-interest loans to the city’s plans for a desalination plant, a project that would add 30 million gallons a day to the region’s water supply. But the project had gone nowhere.

“You know what they did? They squandered it, and then they changed their plan and then they were indecisive about what to do,” Abbott said of city officials in a heated response to a reporter’s question at an unrelated March press conference.

“What Corpus Christi leaders have to do is make a decision,” Abbott said. “We can only give them a little time more before the state of Texas has to take over and micromanage that city and run that city to make sure that every resident who goes to the water tap and turns it on, they are going to be getting water out of their faucet, not because of what local leaders are doing but because of what the state of Texas will do.”

Even as Abbott was demanding that Corpus Christi get its act together, another agency, whose entire board Abbott appoints, was also coming undone.

In late June, board members of the Nueces River Authority learned that funding for a desalination plant the agency hopes to build, separate from the city’s, is months from running out. Additionally, the agency was spending more than it was taking in, and other contracts that had kept the authority financially afloat had been canceled.

Although the river authority’s project is a critical part of efforts to expand the region’s water supply, so far, the governor hasn’t threatened to take over the agency’s day-to-day operations. He’s consistently placed the burden of responsibility on the NRA board.

But Abbott has previously demonstrated that he can use his authority to compel other agencies to act: In March, he instructed a different river authority not to reduce Corpus Christi’s water allocation from Lake Texana. He also had the state’s environmental agency waive regulations so the city could move groundwater from Nueces County, which includes Corpus Christi, to its water treatment plant.

As far back as October 2022, while he was campaigning for reelection, Abbott said in an interview with KRIS 6 News that the state was working with the city and Nueces County on a desalination plan. If the city did not pursue the project, “then the state of Texas will do it for them,” the governor said. But the state is not currently involved in the city’s desalination project.

The governor appoints all 21 members of the NRA’s board and designates its president. With a majority vote of the river authority board, Abbott also can remove any board member for inefficiency, neglect of duty or misconduct. He has no such control over the Corpus Christi City Council.

Political scientists and water policy researchers who reviewed the situation told KRIS 6 News that Abbott’s decision to pressure Corpus Christi while leaving the NRA to address its problems largely on its own reflects a selective use of power. While recent rains have helped delay, though not prevent, an immediate water emergency for Corpus Christi, experts say the region still needs to develop new infrastructure projects to secure its long-term water supply.

Should water supplies drop below certain levels, Corpus Christi residents and businesses — including oil refineries and petrochemical plans — would be required to cut water use by 25 % under the city’s current Level 1 water emergency plan. Households would be capped at using 6,000 gallons of water per month, landscape watering would be banned and there would be surcharges imposed on those who exceed their allotments.

“The city of Corpus Christi needs a lot of help, it doesn’t need threats, and the Nueces River Authority is in way over its head,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. “The water crisis in Corpus Christi and beyond in Southeast Texas is serious, and it’s not clear that anyone has the breadth of authority and resources to deal with it.”

What Power Does Abbott Have?

The public troubles for the NRA bubbled up as far back as March, when the agency’s then-chief operating officer sent a letter to board members accusing Executive Director John Byrum of making “materially inaccurate” statements about the authority’s finances related to the planned desalination project.

KRIS 6 reached out to the governor’s office in the spring about the accusations.

“Every member of a Texas board or commission should uphold the highest standards of integrity, transparency, and accountability in service of the people of Texas,” Abbott press secretary Andrew Mahaleris wrote in a statement. “Governor Abbott expects a thorough investigation into the allegations brought forth and for the Board to act swiftly once the investigation is complete.”

The board eventually cleared Byrum of “intentional wrongdoing,” but the NRA declined to release a copy of the investigation to KRIS 6 in response to a public information request; the Texas office of the attorney general has not yet ruled on whether the report can be withheld. The news organization asked the governor’s office for his response to the investigation and the board’s decision, but he did not respond.

The river authority’s unstable finances became even more apparent at a board meeting in late June, when the agency’s chief financial officer confirmed the NRA could be out of money for the desalination project by the end of August if certain contracts didn’t materialize. Since then, three of the agency’s desalination contracts, which the authority was depending on to stay afloat, expired and have not yet been renewed. KRIS 6 News asked the governor’s office whether it was aware of the agency’s continuing problems. Mahaleris again referred the news organization back to board members.

“The NRA Board oversees the agency’s operations and finances,” Mahaleris wrote June 27. “The Governor appoints board members to the state’s water authorities but does not manage their day-to-day operations. …The Governor expects accountability from appointed boards.”

While Abbott has no direct legal authority over the NRA’s policy decisions, he can use the power of his office to publicly pressure them, Ron Beal, a retired Baylor University School of Law professor whose work on Texas administrative procedure has been routinely cited by the Texas Supreme Court, wrote in a response to KRIS 6 News.

“He can say that when each member’s term ends, if the water project is not on its way, they will absolutely NOT be re-appointed to the job!” Beal wrote. “In other words, he cannot force them legally to follow his orders, but there is no doubt he has the bully pulpit and if anyone can pressure everyone to work together NOW and get it done ASAP, it is the Governor!!!!”

In a written statement to KRIS 6 News for this story, Abbott again placed responsibility on both the Corpus Christi City Council and the NRA board but did not address most of the specific questions asked.

“Despite the temporary reprieve granted by recent rain, the Governor’s expectations for the region have not changed. … The Corpus Christi City Council created this crisis through repeated failure to act on desalination,” Mahaleris wrote. “The Council remains responsible for securing reliable water for their citizens. The Nueces River Authority Board is responsible for the agency’s finances” and the desalination project.

The governor’s office did not answer questions about whether Abbott has taken steps to coordinate among the city, the NRA and other stakeholders, or about what “accountability from appointed boards” looks like in practice.

Even as the governor’s office has publicly distanced itself from the NRA’s operations, it has fought to keep from releasing its own communications with the river authority’s leadership.

KRIS 6 News filed a public information request on July 2 seeking emails, text messages, meeting notes and correspondence between the governor and members of his staff and Byrum, the NRA executive director, and NRA board President Eric Burnett. The request covered the river authority’s desalination project and any state funding, grants or loan guarantees related to those efforts.

The governor’s office confirmed on July 17 that it had records that met the parameters of the request. It did not release them. Instead, the office asked the attorney general’s office for permission to withhold the documents. The office argued that the records relate to a proposed water facility project for which state funding may be sought and that releasing them would “seriously disadvantage Texas,” but did not explain how. Abbott’s office also said the records reflect policy advice between the governor’s office and representatives of another state agency; this type of communication can sometimes be withheld under the state’s public information law.

The river authority has struggled to keep up with the demands of the desalination project, which is estimated to cost $6.4 billion. Design work on the pipeline that’s supposed to deliver the desalinated water stalled because the river authority hasn’t offered the company building it a new contract. Byrum, the executive director, has claimed President Donald Trump promised funding for the project, but the river authority has never actually made a formal request to the White House.

Jillson pointed to a fundamental mismatch between the NRA and the scale of the desalination project it’s trying to complete. The NRA staff is small, with an annual budget of up to about $5 million. It’s governed by unpaid, part-time board members who historically meet quarterly to provide broad direction.

He said the governor should direct someone in his office to determine whether the NRA has the personnel and expertise to execute a project of this scale and, if it doesn’t, to act on that finding. Without that kind of direct link between the governor’s office and the agency, Jillson said, “what you’re saying is, ‘We expect these guys to oversee themselves.’”

Byrum wrote in a response to KRIS 6 News that the authority “has the experience to oversee” the project and the option to hire additional staff if required.

The river authority did recently secure one large contract for the project: In May, the NRA selected Israel-based IDE Technologies as its development partner for the desalination plant.

Abbott toured a desalination facility in Israel run by IDE in January 2016. At the time, IDE said Abbott “expressed his intention to partner with Israeli technology companies such as IDE to develop and deploy water solutions for Texas,” as reported by Wastewater Digest.

KRIS 6 News asked if the governor, or anyone in his office, was involved in the NRA’s selection of IDE.

Byrum wrote that the “Governor’s office was not involved.” KRIS 6 News asked the governor the same question, but his spokesperson did not respond.

The Takeover Question

Abbott has a record of curbing the power of Texas cities like Corpus Christi to govern themselves. In 2015, he signed a bill that overrode a voter-approved fracking ban in Denton in North Texas and blocked cities from banning or restricting oil and gas drilling. In 2023, he signed the so-called “Death Star” bill, which preempted city authority over eight policy areas, including labor, natural resources, insurance and property.

Republican state Rep. Denise Villalobos, who represents the Corpus Christi region, previously told KRIS 6 that Abbott directed her to draft a bill that would create a state-level water infrastructure authority, something she compared to the state’s highway department.

If adopted by the Legislature when it meets next year, such an authority would take many decisions about future water supplies away from locals.

Villalobos did not comment for this story. Abbott’s office did not answer questions about the proposed legislation.

Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni told KRIS 6 this summer that his office had looked into how a takeover would work and found no examples in Texas of the state stepping in to run a water operation or water corporation. The closest parallel, he said, is the state’s ability to take over ailing school districts.

Abbott’s threat to take over Corpus Christi’s desalination project runs into other unsettled legal territory the governor’s office has not addressed publicly, said Gabriel Collins, a lawyer and research fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy who studies water and energy policy.

Under Texas law, surface water, meaning rivers and lakes, is public property, giving the state a clear line of authority. Water pumped from the ground is considered private property, belonging to the person who owns the land above it, and is regulated locally.

Desalinated seawater fits into neither category. Collins said a legal case could theoretically be made that water drawn from within 3 miles of shore falls under state jurisdiction, but he said he isn’t aware of anyone making that argument in this context.

“That would be a massive shift in water policy in the state of Texas,” Collins said.

But the legal question may be less important than a practical one, Collins said. Would a state takeover of Corpus Christi water regulators, even if it could be done, actually make a difference?

“Or would you be better off resolving those fundamental problems by having the state be a catalyst and a facilitator financially that helps the local political authorities solve a problem?” Collins said.