Swinney Switch fire ousts 150 people on Christmas — burns house, mobile home and 200 acres

[TexasTowelie]

2. Lake Corpus Christi has mandatory water releases

in order to provide fresh water to the shrimp estuaries downstream.

Corpus Christi obtains water from two sources: Choke Canyon (on the Frio river) and Lake Corpus Christi (on the Nueces river south of where the Frio and Atascosa rivers join with it). Since Choke Canyon is a deeper lake, during the summer water flow comes from Lake Corpus Christi in order to minimize surface evaporation.

In addition, some of the other communities besides Corpus Christi have water rights to Lake CC. While Corpus Christi has guaranteed to those cities that they will release enough water from Choke Canyon, Lake CC is essentially a pass-through lake. Those cities are now investigating whether to build new water intake structures as the water level declines.

Unfortunately, these factors are the primary reasons why Lake Corpus Christi is usually low. The state park in that area is also suffering from the effects of decreased tourism. Between the two lakes, the surface water supply for Corpus Christi is below the 40% mark and water restrictions are now coming to bear.