Orange Grove Residents Rally Against Corpus Christi Groundwater Pumping Expansion

Orange Grove voted on March 18 to formally protest Corpus Christi's plans to expand groundwater pumping near Bluntzer, with Mayor Carl Srp and local ranchers warning the city is drawing from an aquifer that cannot keep pace with demand.

Bruce Mumme, owner of Triple M Ranch, has already spent thousands of dollars dropping his water pump and drilling a second well to keep his operation running. He described the moment the supply failed without warning. "One day the spigot didn't come on, no water. Oh no, what am I going to do? I got all these cows that, a cow drinks about 20 gallons of water a day just to keep them going," Mumme said. He framed the scale of what Corpus Christi is proposing in blunt terms: "They're talking about millions of gallons a day. You know we drain Mathis lake are we gonna drain the aquifer. Then what?"

Orange Grove native Leigh Roxanne Williams said the damage is not hypothetical. When Corpus Christi turned its pumps on last year, she said the zone lost quite a few million gallons of water, and the drawdown reached her property. "I'm probably, at least, 10 miles away from the area, it impacted my well," Williams said. She warned that dried-out wells can cause thousands of dollars in damage, costs she and her neighbors cannot absorb, and expressed a broader fear about the region's future. "And what I'm afraid is that the City of Corpus Christi is going to make it to where it's unlivable in South Texas," she said.

Mayor Srp acknowledged Corpus Christi's predicament while drawing a clear line. "They need water. I'm fully for that, but they want to get into my water, and I don't appreciate it," he said. He added that the town intends to defend every resource it has: "I think we should take every precaution to protect our waters that they thought was ours. And now that the lake has gone dry others entities, and I understand that they're in trouble."

Corpus Christi's position is severe. The city's two main reservoirs sit at historic lows after a persistent drought, and city leaders have told residents they are less than a year away from water cuts that could force a 25 percent reduction in use or trigger extra fees. Industry associations representing companies including Valero and LyondellBasell have warned city officials they might curtail or shut down local operations if more water is not secured.

That pressure has driven Corpus Christi toward groundwater, but a local pilot known as Harlan, who comes from a long line of farmers in the area, is leading a grassroots effort to impose regulatory limits. He contends the city wells are "pulling water out faster than the aquifer can recharge." Harlan is spearheading a push to establish Nueces County's first-ever groundwater conservation district. Residents petitioned the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in September seeking state authorization for the district. If the agency approves the proposal, local voters would still need to ratify its creation.

Robert Mace, executive director of the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University, described what such a district could and could not accomplish. A district can deny new drilling permits or cap how much water all well owners in an area may pump, Mace said, but it cannot impose restrictions on a single well owner or shut one off entirely. About 72 percent of Texas aquifers are already overseen by groundwater conservation districts.

State planning data from the Texas Water Development Board's January 2024 Jim Wells County summary shows the county's unincorporated areas drawing heavily on the Gulf Coast Aquifer System, with projected water needs for County-Other, Jim Wells rising from 2,058 acre-feet per year in 2020 to 2,650 acre-feet per year by 2070. Orange Grove itself is listed in the same document as relying on the Gulf Coast Aquifer System, with municipal conservation identified as its recommended management strategy.

With the formal protest approved and petitions circulating, Orange Grove has made clear it will not yield quietly to a city four times its size.