City staff outline multiple water-supply paths: Nueces River wells producing now; Evangeline, Inner Harbor remain options

City staff presented an updated water-supply briefing that lays out short-, medium- and long-term options intended to keep the city supplied while western reservoir storage declines.

Drew Molly, the citysystems project lead, said the city is "discharging today anywhere between 5 to 7,000,000 gallons a day of water into the river" from newly drilled wells as part of the Nueces River Groundwater Well Project. He described the effort as a two-phase program: a near-term phase that is producing raw groundwater now and a conceptual longer-term phase that could feed a brackish reverse-osmosis (RO) plant.

Molly and water-systems staff described the Eastern Well Field as able to sustain roughly 11,000,000 gallons per day based on monitoring and hydrogeologic analysis; staff reported the city has eight production wells nearly complete in the Eastern Well Field and that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) issued a bed-and-banks permit in early August allowing the city to lawfully discharge well water into the Nueces River. The Western Well Field is under development; a test well and geological logging show potential short-term yields near 27,000,000 gallons per day but the city's hydrogeologist has advised a conservative long-term sustained yield of about 17,000,000 gallons per day pending additional wells and modeling.

Staff said capital expenditures to date for the well-drilling program total about $18,000,000 and that the city has a $30,000,000 state grant to offset drilling costs for the Nueces River wells. Molly and staff emphasized continued monitoring and the need for hydrogeologic confirmation before committing to larger long-term pumping rates.

Looking beyond wells, staff updated the council on the Evangeline groundwater project: the city has an offer to purchase water rights for an estimated $169,000,000 and engineering estimates put capital costs to develop and convey 12 million gallons per day in the Evangeline concept at roughly $200,000,000 (well field, pipelines, pumps and treatment); a 24 MGD scale was presented as feasible with additional costs. For a combined, long-term strategy—Eastern plus Western well fields and a future RO plant at the city's Owen-Stevens site—staff provided a conceptual cost estimate of about $350,000,000 to construct a brackish RO facility and conveyance for roughly 28,000,000 gallons per day.

The city also summarized the Nueces River Authority (Inner Harbor) public-private proposal. Staff said permits with the Army Corps and TCEQ were recently filed and shown a timeline that could stretch from 2029 to the early 2030s. City staff presented reservation-cost figures reported by the project proponents: an annual, nonrefundable reservation fee on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars per year for large reservation volumes (examples shown: $821,000 per year to reserve 30 MGD), and staff said they will request clarification when they meet the Nautical River Authority's representatives.

Molly presented a water-supply dashboard that models reservoir storage, Mary Rhodes pipeline deliveries, and incremental groundwater additions; staff stressed the model is conservative and uses a low-rainfall assumption. Under the modeling shown, with only current supplies the city would face a projected shortfall date (projected zero combined western reservoir storage) around May 2027. If wells and pipeline/treatment expansions align as modeled, that zero-storage date could move to 2029 or later and the Inner Harbor project could materially alter long-term supply trajectories if delivered as proposed.

Council members asked technical questions about sustainable yields, permitting and the length of temporary permits. Staff explained the current bed-and-banks permit for the first well field is temporary and the city intends to apply for a permanent diversion/discharge right; discharge permits have renewal review requirements that could change permit conditions over time. Staff also discussed options to combine supply sources and to site treatment at Owen-Stevens so multiple raw sources could be treated at a single RO facility to capture economies of scale.

The presentation ended with staff noting several near-term meetings (Evangelina team, CC Polymers, Hart Ryland, South Texas Water Authority) and promising a follow-up status update to council on September 23. Council members and presenters repeatedly flagged the need for continuing hydrogeologic study, environmental review and public outreach before making large capital commitments.