AUSTIN (Texas Tribune) — Texas communities will need to spend $174 billion in the next 50 years to avert a severe water crisis, a new state analysis revealed Thursday. That’s more than double the $80 billion projected four years ago, when the Texas Water Development Board last passed a state water plan.

The three-member board presiding over the agency authorized the highly anticipated draft blueprint Thursday, the first administrative step toward adopting the water development board’s plans for the next 50 years. The plan, released every five years, encompasses the projects that 16 regional water planning groups in Texas said are the most urgent, water development board officials said. 

The board’s latest estimates come as the state’s water supply faces numerous threats. Growing communities across Texas are scrambling to secure water, keep up with construction costs and cope with a yearslong drought. This week, Corpus Christi officials said the city may be just months away from declaring a water emergency. Meanwhile, other rural cities by the Coastal Bend are rapidly drilling wells to avoid a crisis. Residents in North Texas have also been bracing for groundwater shortages.

In an effort to restrain the crisis, lawmakers last year called an election in which voters approved a $20 billion boost for communities to use on water-related expenses. The water development board’s estimate shows that what lawmakers proposed on the ballot falls dramatically short of the needed cash, experts said.

“What this number tells me at the end of the day is if we don’t get serious about (funding water projects), there are going to be serious consequences for Texas,” said Perry Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network. “Even with the billion-dollar-a-year plan kicking in, it’s not going to be enough to offset the costs of the projects that are going to have to be executed.”

The new estimate accounts for 3,000 projects, from regional infrastructure upgrades to smaller endeavors such as drilling new water wells. Texas’ water supplies are expected to drop by roughly 10% between 2030 and 2080, according to the water plan. In that same time frame, the maximum amount of water communities can draw is also expected to decline by 9%.

The 80-page plan notes approximately 6,700 recommended strategies that would add water to the state’s dwindling portfolio. The recommendations — which are not accounted for in the cost — include developing new supplies from aquifer storage and recovery, brackish groundwater, desalination and recycled water. It also calls for water conservation.

The report suggested that if Texas does not implement the plans and recommendations, the state is one severe drought away from an estimated $91 billion in economic damages in 2030.

The state’s plan attributes a variety of reasons for the bigger price tag, such as higher costs of construction due to inflation, impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on supply chains, and a growing backlog of water supply projects.

“There’s a plan that can meet our needs,” said Matt Nelson, deputy executive administrator for the Office of Planning at the water development board, adding that they take their cues from the regional planning groups. “These are local projects that folks need to implement; they’re needed regardless of how they’re funded. It’s important to remember these are not top-down projects or state projects.”

Experts told The Texas Tribune that the board’s estimate is only a fraction of what Texas communities will need to ensure they have water in 50 years’ time, saying growth and development are outpacing the state’s ability to keep up.

“This is a bigger water plan in terms of volume strategies and capital costs compared to anything we’ve ever seen before,” said Jeremy Mazur, the director of infrastructure and natural resources policy at think tank Texas 2036.

Mazur suggested that the $174 billion only covers water supply projects and does not account for updating aging infrastructure, adding that the actual price could amount to a quarter of a trillion dollars.

“There’s a substantial magnitude with regard to the capital investment needed to both fix our aging and current systems and potentially develop the water infrastructure, water supply projects that we need.“

The report largely confirmed what many water experts have warned regarding threats to the state’s water supply, said Sarah Kirkle, director of policy at the Texas Water Association.

“Population growth, extreme weather, and economic development needs are all increasing demands on our infrastructure, and the state is going to need more water, sooner,” Kirkle said. “This is all while water projects are becoming more costly and complex because the easiest and cheapest local projects have already been developed.”

Fowler, with the infrastructure network, said he expects the Texas Legislature to take up the issue next year, when lawmakers meet for the 90th legislative session. He said the state should take a bigger role in ensuring that communities can afford their respective water projects.

“It’s going to have to be a top-down priority, there’s no way around it,” he said. “The challenges are so immense that it’s going to take all hands on deck.”

Texas residents have until the end of May to comment on the proposal. Water development board officials must adopt it by January 2027.

Alejandra Martinez contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at www.texastribune.org. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media organization that informs Texans – and engages with them – about public policy, politics, government and statewide issues.

WASHINGTON — A Mexican mayor earlier this month urged her constituents to get their relatives in Texas to vote for House Democratic candidate Bobby Pulido because he would “take care” of their city if elected to Congress.

“We need to get out the vote for him,” said Patricia Frinee Cantú Garza, mayor of General Bravo in Nuevo León, less than two hours from the US border, in a recent Spanish-speaking Facebook reel,which The Post reviewed and translated.

“Talk to your families in the United States. Make sure they go vote,” Garza added, noting that she would be presenting the keys to the city to Pulido, a two-time Latin Grammy winner, on April 3.

“When he becomes a congressman,” she also said, “we want him to take care of Bravo.”

The city ceremony celebrating Pulido in General Bravo never received enough funding and was cancelled, the Mexican outlet El Norte reported.

Pulido has headlined concerts in General Bravo as recently as November 2023. Local officials promoted the show and the current mayor and her husband, then-mayor Edgar Cantu Fernandez, appeared.

“Bobby doesn’t know the mayor and has never met her,” a Pulido campaign spokesperson said in a statement. “He declined the invitation, didn’t attend the event, and isn’t responsible for unsolicited comments made by other people.”

Bradley Smith, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said the statements wouldn’t pose legal or ethical issues for Pulido — but that the remarks may have a political cost, given the focus on foreign involvement in US elections in recent years.

“If you were making financial contributions, that would be a different thing, but just to exhort people to vote,” Smith said, “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for them.”

Jessica Furst Johnson, a partner at the Republican-aligned campaign finance and election law firm Lex Politica, noted that event appeared to function as an in-kind contribution to Pulido’s campaign but it would be difficult to determine without “more details.”

Congressional Republicans have thus far failed to pass a bill this session aimed at beefing up identification requirements for voters when registering, though many have said laws as currently written are too lax and could lead to non-citizens casting ballots.

State investigations and audits have shown in recent years that thousands of non-citizens ended up being registered, but few have ever illegally voted. Those who have are federally prosecuted.

Pulido is challenging incumbent GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in the Texas district this November and has faced questions from the press about his ties to Mexico, where he has said he maintains a home for parts of the year.

The Latino music star admitted to splitting time with his family between there and Texas just two years before launching his campaign, telling a YouTube show in a 2023 interview that he’s a “summer Mexican” but “winter Texan.”

“We live on the border,” he has also said. “My wife and I have a house in Mexico. So, we travel there, and we spend time over there.”

There was no indication of a current mortgage on a property either there or in the US, according to financial disclosures that Pulido filed April 15 with the House. Those filings also revealed he holds a checking account at a Mexican bank.

“Bobby lives in his family home in Edinburg, Texas, where he was born, raised, and is raising his own family,” the Pulido campaign rep noted. “He is in complete compliance with all House disclosure rules — the property you are referencing is not his primary residence so is not required to be listed.”