Orange Grove eyes water partnership with Alice as wells worsen

The old assumption that local wells would keep running is breaking down in Jim Wells County, where Orange Grove is watching lower groundwater levels and declining water quality hit its only aquifer. If the city cannot secure a new supply, households, businesses and future rates could all feel the strain.

That pressure has pushed Orange Grove leaders to explore a partnership with Alice, including the possibility of buying treated water from the city system. Orange Grove has also hired legal counsel as it weighs its supply and legal options, a sign the problem has moved beyond routine utility planning and into long-term survival for the town’s water supply.

The trouble is already showing up in the ground itself. Reporting from the region says salinity in Orange Grove wells has risen quickly since Corpus Christi began pumping more water from the Evangeline Aquifer last summer. In the Coastal Bend, where some well owners have seen water drop below pumps and forced expensive changes or backup wells, the risk is no longer abstract.

Alice is one of the few nearby cities with an alternative already in place. Its brackish-water reverse-osmosis plant, the first public-private brackish desalination plant in Texas, was officially commissioned in July 2025. Seven Seas Water Group financed, designed, built and now operates the facility under a Water-as-a-Service arrangement, and the plant can deliver up to 2.7 million gallons of high-quality drinking water per day, with expansion options.

Inside the Alice desalination plant, crews have been doing routine maintenance to keep water flowing, a reminder that the facility is now part of the city’s daily water strategy, not just a construction project. Alice also says its broader system includes Lake Findley, which has about a three-day supply capacity, water moves through a 20-inch pipeline to a production facility, and a seven-million-gallon holding pond stores it for use.

Alice has already lived with drought pressure of its own. City records show a Drought Contingency Plan Stage 2 public notice in March 2024 and Stage 3 implementation later on. City officials say Alice serves more than 19,000 residents and about 907 businesses, and Michael Esparza has said the city is open to cooperation if another community wants to participate in the system.

For Orange Grove, the conversation is about more than a temporary fix. It is a test of whether Jim Wells County communities can treat water as a shared regional asset before scarcity, salinity and higher costs force harsher decisions.