I grew up sorta close to the place where the plant will end up.
The area gets its water from surface sources; Lake Corpus Christi in Mathis Tx ( Nueces River dammed by the Civilian Conservation Corps back in the 1930s IIRC) Choke Canyon near Three Rivers Tx (dammed portion of the Frio River before it meets the Nueces; former ranch land owned by one of Corpus' good old boys who got a honey of a deal on 50 acres of basically swamp lands) and the Mary Rhodes Pipeline (she was a well liked mayor in Corpus once upon a time) which pulls water from Lake Texana. Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus are currently sitting at a combined capacity of around 16-17%. There is so little water that they are considering DRAINING CHOKE CAYON INTO LAKE CORPUS CHRISTI.
The city just recently had TCEQ permits approved for the first saltwater desal plant in Texas. There are other desal plants in Texas but they use brackish water which is a much lower salt content. They intend to discharge back into the hypersaline estuaries and backwater bays which are a breeding ground for some of the most diverse saltwater nurseries along rhe entire texas coast. Corpus Christi has shot itself in the foot multiple times; it gas sold out its water capacity to industry like Flint Hills which is owned by the mother fucking Kochs, places like TEPCO which produce pvc products, CITGO, etc.
The desal plant is supposed to produce something like 30 million gallons per day at full boogie. Of that, 8 will go to Tesla right off the fucking bat. The fat lot of it is currently being split up amongst multiple industrial shitholes looking to upgrade or expand into a state with lax environmental protections, and into a specific city that really doesnt give a fuck about its residents but will whore irself out to industry. The water that the citizens need to drink is siphoned away to be used by corporations owned by business men to line their pockets with.
The whole fucking thing sucks. And its only gonna get worse for the poor sods who still reside there.
Corpus uses somewhere around 90-95 million gallons daily, of which some estimates are as high as 75 million gallons going to industrial uses alone.