The Corpus Christi City Council will vote Tuesday on a $1 million lease that would let the city start pumping groundwater from the Evangeline project in San Patricio County, even as the larger deal for that water remains stuck.
The lease covers two wells that are already drilled on the property. Under the proposal, the city would pay the seller, Evangeline Laguna, LP, $1 million up front. As the city uses water, it would pay 80 cents per 1,000 gallons out of that money. The lease lasts one year and renews automatically.
A city memo says the wells could produce up to four million gallons of water a day.
The lease is separate from the city’s $169.5 million deal to buy the rights to all of the Evangeline groundwater. The council approved that purchase in October 2025, but the city does not pay until the seller gets two permits from the San Patricio County Groundwater Conservation District: one to drill 22 new wells and one to move the water out of San Patricio County to Corpus Christi.
Those permits have been held up for months. The City of Sinton, St. Paul Water Supply Corporation and two farms challenged them, saying the project could hurt their own wells. In May, a judge ruled the opponents can make their case in a formal hearing, KRIS 6 reported. City leaders have warned that process could take up to two years. As of Sept. 25, no hearing date had been set, according to a city water update.
The purchase contract gave the seller 180 days to get the permits. In April, KRIS 6 asked City Manager Peter Zanoni whether that deadline had passed. Zanoni said the clock started when both sides signed the contract, which happened in March. That put the deadline in mid- to late September, and it passed without the permits.
When that happens, the contract allows the city to extend the deadline by 90 days, waive the permit requirement or walk away, all in writing. If the city does not respond in writing within 30 days, the contract says the city is treated as having walked away.
The lease also points to the city’s backup plan if the water cannot leave San Patricio County. Water from the two wells would stay in the county. The city memo says it would flow through the Mary Rhodes Pipeline to the San Patricio Municipal Water District, which already buys water from Corpus Christi. Zanoni has said customers in San Patricio County get about 40 million gallons a day from the city.
Keeping the water in the county has been discussed for more than a year. In June 2025, then-Corpus Christi Water chief Drew Molly told the council that keeping Evangeline water in San Patricio County would avoid the need for a transport permit. In October 2025, Zanoni told the council that sending the water to the San Patricio district was one option if the permits fell short.
The stakes are high because of the region’s historic drought and the city’s race to find new water. City leaders pinned their hopes on Evangeline. In March, Zanoni called it “the only thing right now that will keep us out of a Level 1 water emergency.”
Rain this summer has eased some of the pressure. Lake Corpus Christi was 83.6% full on Sept. 25, up from 15.7% a year earlier, according to the city. Choke Canyon Reservoir was only 22.2% full, and the city remains under Stage 1 water restrictions. The city once hoped to have Evangeline water flowing by November 2026, but said in July that would not happen this year.
Meanwhile, the city has kept building. It had spent $119.8 million on the Evangeline project as of Sept. 25, including construction, engineering, legal and administrative costs, according to its latest update. Crews had laid about 37% of the project’s pipeline. In all, the council has approved about $591.7 million in Evangeline purchases and contracts, according to the city memo, even though the city does not yet own the water rights.
