This story was produced in partnership by Inside Climate News and the Texas Newsroom, the state’s network of public radio stations.
Corpus Christi needs the groundwater beneath the small town of Sinton so urgently that it’s already laying pipeline, even before it has the permits to start drilling for water.
Sinton, with 5,500 residents about half an hour north, is fighting those permits in court, citing concerns for its own water supply. But leaders in Corpus Christi, which supplies water to half a million people, now suggest an ulterior motive: Sinton wants a thirsty, new complex of data centers.
Officials and executives in Corpus Christi point to recent land deals, well permits and a rezoning ordinance as evidence for the data center plans. Officials in Sinton neither confirm nor deny Corpus Christi’s supposition.
“It is rumors,” said John Hobson, Sinton’s city manager, declining to say whether or not it is true.
