Corpus Christi water crisis spurs stampede on South Texas aquifers

Cities, towns and industrial complexes aim to quickly pump tens of millions of gallons per day in a bid to avert disaster.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News April 10, 2026April 10, 2026

Cities, towns and industrial complexes aim to quickly pump tens of millions of gallons per day in a bid to avert disaster.

An aerial shot shows the area around Texas State Aquarium located next to Harbor Bridge and skyline of Corpus Christi Downtown in background.

News

After a decade of missteps, Corpus Christi careens toward water catastrophe

City officials expect to reach a ‘water emergency’ within months and run out of water next year. That would halt jet fuel deliveries to Texas airports, hike gas prices and trigger a local economic disaster without precedent, former officials say.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News March 9, 2026March 9, 2026

Texas News

The world’s last flock of wild whooping cranes gets more living space in Texas

Once on the brink of extinction, these birds are expanding their grounds on an isolated stretch of the Gulf Coast in Texas.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News December 28, 2025December 28, 2025

Love Sanchez, founder of Indigenous People of the Coastal Bend and a Karankawa descendent.

Texas News

Indigenous groups fight to save rediscovered settlement site on Texas coast

Flanked by a chemical plant and an oil rig construction yard, the site on Corpus Christi Bay may be the last of its kind on this stretch of coastline, now occupied by petrochemical facilities.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News December 23, 2025December 23, 2025

An oil refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast releases pollution into the air.

Texas News

Petrochemical expansion in Texas will fall heavily on communities of color, study finds

Researchers in Houston analyzed the locations of 114 proposed industrial projects related to oil and gas in Texas, most of them involved in plastics production.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News December 1, 2025December 1, 2025

News

Experts worry about natural disaster readiness as Trump’s phase-out of FEMA moves ahead

Trump said he’ll start dismantling the Federal Emergency Management Agency this year: ‘We want to bring it down to the state level.’

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News June 16, 2025July 7, 2025

News

Microplastics from Texas bays are washed out to sea, new study says

The first study of microplastics in Texas coastal sediment was funded through a local environmental activist’s landmark legal victory over plastic pollution, one of many such research projects.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News May 17, 2025May 24, 2025

News

‘Water is the new oil’ as Texas cities square off over aquifer pipeline plans

Fast-growing Georgetown plans to pump 89 million gallons a day from the Carrizo Wilcox Aquifer but the project is being fought by Bryan, College Station and Texas A&M University, which depend on the same water.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News March 31, 2025June 17, 2025

News

How Texas diminished a once-rigorous air pollution monitoring team

Former employees say the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality weakened the unit in the years following the onset of the fracking boom. The operation never returned to what it was before.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News October 12, 2024June 11, 2025

News

The ‘1-mile rule’: Texas’ unwritten, arbitrary policy protects big polluters from citizen complaints

The policy has been denounced in lawsuits and petitions, but the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality denies that it exists.

by Dylan Baddour, Inside Climate News August 1, 2023September 15, 2024