CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — There's big worries in Three Rivers over whether the city will be able to continue to use its only source of water, the Choke Canyon Reservoir. The city has entered Stage 4 water restrictions as the lake is at it's lowest level ever at around 18.9 percent full. Under these restrictions, no one can water their yard.
Corpus Christi Water (CCW) Chief Operating Officer Drew Molly says that even though Choke Canyon is below 19-percent full, the water from that lake will continue to flow down to Corpus Christi.
The City of Three Rivers has used the lake for its source of water since it was built and opened back in the 80's. The City is not only at the mercy of Mother Nature, but the City of Corpus Christi as well since it is not a CCW customer.
Corpus Christi owns 98 percent of the water rights and is continuing to drain the body of water to feed its residents and businesses downstream.
"I mean everybody depends on this water, so we can’t turn anything off we have to let that water continue to do what contractually and is designed to do," Molly said.
The Frio River at Three Rivers is quite the sight right now. 3NEWS discovered the water there was flowing down to Lake Corpus Christi as if there might have been a flood event upstream.
"That would be water that’s being released out of Choke Canyon that’s probably some runoff that’s been accumulated in some of the watershed," Molly said.
Three Rivers City Manager Thomas Salazar said the economy is doing well, but the biggest problem for the town is the dwindling supply of water at the lake.
"The City has worked with the Nueces River Authority a little bit and I know they are working on a plan to see if there’s anyway we could divert water either from the Nueces or maybe even the Atascosa [River] into Choke Canyon," Salazar said.
"You know this concept has been floated out there which is to say one would take water off one of the tributaries into Choke Canyon, 'scalp it' essentially and pipe it and pump it into Choke Canyon and that’s something we would have to look at," Molly said.
Right now as that water flows down the Frio to the Nueces, it's heading to Lake Corpus Christi to eventually be used by the 500,000 CCW customers from across the Coastal Bend.
Molly said that if Mathis city officials want to talk about getting onto the CCW water system he would be more than willing to discuss that option and try and help the city out.
Salazar said he may have to turn to using water wells in the near future as well as diverting some water along the Frio to keep the taps flowing in his city.
Molly added that we are in a tenuous water situation right now and said a forward-thinking city council has backed the desalination plant to help alleviate some of the future worry about our water supply and possibly be able to pipe some of that water back to Three Rivers.