This story was produced in partnership by Inside Climate News and the Texas Newsroom, the state's network of public radio stations.
Amid a spate of historic political upsets across Texas, voters in the industrial port city of Corpus Christi on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a citizen-led petition to impose steep fees for water use on the region's refineries and chemical plants during future droughts.
The measure passed by a two-to-one margin despite heavy spending by industry groups in opposition—a dramatic rebuke of industrial interests in a port city that leads the nation in crude oil exports.
"The people have woken up," said Sylvia Campos, a member of the Corpus Christi City Council and the Democratic Socialists of America who supported the measure. "We overcame all that money."
The city's referendum was part of an earth-shattering election across Texas, a fortress of conservative politics and the seat of the nation's energy sector, which saw Democratic challengers wipe incumbent Republicans out of every statewide office on the ballot.
The new governor-elect of Texas, state Rep. Gina Hinojosa, has described her politics as "economic populism."
"In the past we evaluated politics as right versus left, I just don't think those labels apply at this moment," Hinojosa told the New York Times in October. "Things are so stacked against working people in this country."
In Corpus Christi, a Gulf Coast city of 300,000, partisan lines didn't mark the political divisions that emerged over the referendum on industrial water fees, according to Paul Gottemoller, a professor of political science at Del Mar College in Corpus Christi.
"It's kind of a country club, business, chamber of commerce thing versus a populism thing," Gottemoller said. "You do have populist and business sentiments on both sides of the political aisle."
The measure, proposed as an amendment to the city's charter, would levy millions of dollars in surcharges on the region's largest water users—industrial titans like ExxonMobil, Valero and OxyChem—the next time its main reservoirs drop below 30 percent full.
Refineries, chemical plants and other industrial facilities account for more than half of all water consumption in the Corpus Christi region, where reservoirs almost dried up entirely this year.
"There's clearly some anger and resentment about the water issue," Gottemoller said.
For now, the referendum remains a mostly symbolic win for the voters that supported it. The amendment would take effect after a five-year grace period, during which time it will likely face a litany of legal challenges from industry groups, according to Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni.
"It has significant legal implications that the city will have to address," Zanoni said.
The city will face big challenges defending the policy in court and before the state's Public Utility Commission, Zanoni said.
Industry groups spent hundreds of thousands of dollars supporting candidates and policies in city elections that revolved largely around water, Zanoni said.
A Message to Businesses
The charter amendment "raises broader concerns about the message Corpus Christi sends to businesses considering whether to invest, expand, or create jobs here," wrote Dolly Trolley, a local industry promoter and school board member, in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times this week. "These companies make long-term investments requiring dependable infrastructure and predictable operating conditions."
Groups including the Coastal Bend Coalition and Coastal Bend Industries Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Texas Campaign for the Environment, which helped lead and finance the petition drive, said in a press release after the amendment's approval on Tuesday, "Its victory is proof that the community is tired of being plundered."
"Industry will try to block its implementation through legal channels," the press release said. "TCE stands ready to defend the sovereignty of Corpus Christi voters."
Early this year, as an unprecedented water crisis loomed, groups including TCE, the Democratic Socialists of America and For the Greater Good gathered almost 13,000 verified signatures of registered voters on a petition for the charter amendment.
Epic rainfall in July refilled local reservoirs above critical levels. In August, the Corpus Christi City Council approved the petition for November's ballot, against the advice of city staff.
"This victory is bigger than one water policy," said Armon Alex, director of the petition campaign for TCE. "It is proof that residents can use the democratic tools available to us to take greater control over the resources and decisions that shape our lives."
Most of the region's largest water users currently pay about $4.50 per 1,000 gallons of water supplied by the city of Corpus Christi. The charter amendment would increase the price by $3 when reservoirs fall below 30 percent, by $6 when they fall below 20 percent and by $12 if the city declares a "water emergency."
For companies that use millions of gallons of water per day, that would mean millions of dollars added to monthly water bills. The region's largest water user, a plastics plant owned jointly by ExxonMobil and Saudi Basic Industries Corp, used 13.5 million gallons per day in 2025, almost as much as all residents of Corpus Christi combined.
Under the charter amendment, that facility would face about $810,000 in additional water costs every day while reservoirs remain below 20 percent, like they recently did for 19 months between December 2024 and July of this year.
2018 Plan Nullified
Unlike drought surcharges currently prescribed in city code, which require proactive action by City Council to enact, the charter amendment would implement fees automatically as reservoirs hit designated trigger points.
It also nullifies an arrangement between city and business leaders, struck at the height of the shale oil boom, which exempted the industrial facilities from potential surcharges during drought if they paid a special fee, called the drought surcharge exemption fee, of $0.31 per 1,000 gallons.
When it was adopted, in 2018, leaders said proceeds from the exemption fee would fund construction of a seawater desalination plant—the first of its kind in Texas—that would supply new and expanded industrial complexes with water.
However, the exemption fee would bring in just $6 million per year, while estimated payments on the desalination plant ballooned to nearly $70 million per year in 2025, when City Council called off the project, unwilling to accept its high cost.
At the same time, the companies' exemption from potential drought surcharges left Corpus Christi without any tools to compel conservation from the largest water users, even as a record breaking, five-year drought dried the region's reservoirs to less than eight percent full this May..
"Let's give the industry a huge break on water, and during a drought," said a 64-year-old graphic designer and Corpus Christi native named Michael, outside a polling place on Tuesday where he voted in favor of the charter amendment. "It just seemed kind of silly."
The charter amendment passed on Tuesday cancels that exemption, terminates the exemption fee and replaces it with the hefty, automatic surcharges during drought.
"The result of the amendment tracks with the current political climate," said Perry Fowler, executive director of the Texas Water Infrastructure Network, a construction and engineering trade coalition. "It still does not negate the need for the area to secure a reliable, long-term water supply."
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