A special broadcast from Corpus Christi

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Corpus Christi cuts its timeline to a water disaster in the state issue's emergency orders

to deal with what may be an unprecedented crisis more today on The Standard.

Texas Standard is a production of KUT Austin, K-E-R-A North Texas, Houston Public Media and Texas

Public Radio in San Antonio, with support from CASA, court-appointed special advocates,

making a difference for children in foster care.

I'm David Brown coming to you live from the place they call the sparkling city by the

sea.

Yet despite its proximity to all this water, the region faces the eminent threat of running

out of it.

I'm David Brown and today we're broadcasting from the studios of KEDTR Partners in Corpus

Christi and we'll have the latest on the water crisis here, but also some of the extraordinary

charms of the eight most popular city in Texas, up for shipping, wildlife, preservation,

music and more.

The Standard Live from Corpus Christi coming up next.

No matter where you are, if you're on Texas Standard time, you're in Corpus Christi,

where we're broadcasting live, statewide, from the studios of KEDTR and we've arrived

at a propitious moment.

Last night hundreds of public radio supporters here attended a huge food and wine event

thrown by our hosts, an event that's become an annual tradition here in the city and one

that speaks to the importance of public broadcasting as a voice in this region reaching almost

to half a million in the metro area alone.

And despite the spectacular weather right now, nearly everyone here is talking about a

dark cloud that hangs over this area, a water crisis that according to worst case projections

could be an historic emergency.

Up until about two weeks ago, chances are that unless you lived here or had connections

here, you like many other Texans had only a vague idea about the pressures facing this

city when it comes to water.

Here in Texas, drought is a looming problem for many parts of the state, but over the

past ten years with major industrial and population growth, this Corpus Christi is one

of Texas's largest petrochemical and refining centers, the pressure on the city's water

resources has grown to a level that has simply become unsustainable.

Actually worse than that.

It's not like there haven't been warnings, however.

For more than a decade, there's been talk here about what to do about the city's

dwindling water supply as reservoirs had been dropping lower and lower.

There had been talk of building a major desalination plant at one time, but until recently, well,

that had been tabled, facing opposition over costs and the potential impact on the environment.

But about two weeks ago, a story reported by Dillan Badur of Inside Climate News sounded

a loud alarm bell heard statewide.

The headline, after a decade of missteps, Corpus Christi carines toward water catastrophe.

Badur detailed how the city of Corpus Christi was now just months away from a full-scale

water emergency.

You may remember we spoke with Dillan last week, and the next day Corpus' water crisis

had become front-page news with a governor demanding updates from the local government

and threatening to take over the city unless officials took quick action.

Suddenly, plans for that desalination plant appeared to be back on the front burner,

but a last time is not on the city's side.

Reservoir levels are now below 10 percent.

Industries and refineries are racing to develop contingency plans.

The governor is fast-tracking emergency permits, and now, as Dillan reports, Corpus Christi

is cutting the timeline to disaster.

With some of the latest projections showing people here will be experiencing actual shortages,

sooner than anyone really anticipated.

Reporter Dillan Bedouard joins us live here in the Corpus Christi studios of KEDT, Dillan.

Welcome back.

Great to be here with you, David.

Let's talk about the latest.

When we spoke last week, you just published your article, which has drawn a huge amount

of attention, but there are some new developments.

What's this about an emergency?

What now, perhaps two months away?

Why has that been moved up, and what does that mean as a practical matter?

Well, that's only one scenario that the city presented on Tuesday here, but yes, they

said that actually under two scenarios, there could be emergency cutbacks required as soon

as May of this year, and previously the city was forecasting that for November.

Cutbacks.

What does that mean in water terms?

If you hear that the city is going to announce a cutback in water, what does that mean?

So this is still basically fictitious cutbacks, voluntary cutbacks that we're talking about

at this time, because that's what the plan says.

The city's plan says when we are six months from projected, not having enough water to

supply everyone, we should institute 25% curtailments, cut our water used by a quarter, and that's

to make that remaining supply last as long as possible.

Now the problem that they're encountering is that although that's what the plan says,

no one has any idea of how to institute 25% cutbacks, and they're, I think, working

on that as fast as they can here.

Yeah, I was thinking, how would you enforce that, even?

Well, I know city leaders are having a press briefing today.

This is the first weekly press briefing to keep residents informed as to what's happening.

But this is coming off this new round of projections for a full-blown water emergency.

What are you hearing about the latest and why this press briefing?

We're only now getting press briefings by weekly press briefings, is that right?

That is right.

Yeah, that's, you know, I think as this crisis has crept up, many officials and authorities

have declined to recognize it.

There's a lot of political cost in acknowledging the severity of what's going on here.

So I think a lot of people were banking on emergency water projects, spanning the gap

and not having to take up and deal with this situation of scaling back demand.

But certainly it's gotten the attention of the whole state, of the whole country.

I mean, oil and gas markets can be affected here and that's, you know, it's going on

in the world with that.

Yeah, for sure.

And in fact, Texas, of course, it's a pro-business state.

And there's been a ton of industrial development here.

I want to understand something.

If there is a water emergency declared, what about those facilities?

I mean, if you're asking people to cut back, what happens with these facilities?

Well, that's really the key question there and that's what we're looking for answers

on.

You know, honestly, residents can't cut back a whole lot more.

They've been under water use restrictions for, I think, more than a year.

They can't water their lawns outside, you know, reducing showers and teeth brushing is

no longer going to be effective strategy here.

It's got to get to the plants and the refineries and that presents all kinds of puzzles.

So it now appears the governor stepped in in response to your reporting.

I want to ask you about something because at first, as I understand it, city leaders

were calling your report alarmist.

What are city leaders saying now?

That is true.

What city leaders are saying now is basically conceding the timelines that were presented

in my report are, you know, in fact, what we're dealing with, city leaders initially very

aggressively challenged the idea that they were running out of water and turned into a big

fight.

At this point, after our meeting, the city council meeting on Tuesday, they basically adopted

those timelines and the governor himself has stepped in with emergency orders to address

this situation.

And those emergency orders, what does that mean?

So most recently, he issued orders removing permitting requirements for water wells on

the noises river so that corpus could immediately begin pumping up more water supplies.

And he made an order for a nearby river authority to amend its rules and not require to corpus

to cut back as soon as next month.

You know, we reported that on Monday.

We reported that rule and immediately almost the governor issued an order changing that

rule.

So they're working to keep up with this as quickly as they can.

For years and years now, more than a decade, really, certainly.

Corpus Christi has been working to develop a plan to head off a water disaster like what

we're talking about.

I mean, they have three reservoirs, one of those reservoirs supplied by a water pipeline.

And even going as far back as the statewide drought of the 1950s, corpus was planning

for a worst case scenario of a possibility.

They were drilling wells along the Nueces River.

Back in the 90s, I gathered, they purchased water rights from rice farmers and we've seen

what's happened with the rice industry, of course.

They were exploring desalination, as I was saying earlier.

But this has been a long time coming.

Why does the city find itself in a situation that it does right now?

Because on the one hand, you can say, well, it's not like there's been inactivity.

On the other hand, the fact that we are now talking about this in terms of crisis, emergency

and as you put it, catastrophe seems genuinely unprecedented.

Yes, indeed.

I mean, what we can see is that everybody knew about this problem.

We knew that where the projections led to, and they talked about solutions kind of breathlessly,

but in the end, nothing was really built out.

I think a lot of attention and probably law enforcement investigations are ultimately

going to explore how the city got to this point.

That is fascinating.

Law enforcement investigations will be interesting to see how this develops.

But let me go back to desalination.

Why not desalination?

If we're talking about a full-blown crisis emergency catastrophe, why not build that desalination

plant toot suite?

Well, at this point, it seems that desalination is no longer relevant to the crisis at hand.

Just talking about it fast enough?

Well, we're talking about a timeline of months.

And the most optimistic projections say a desal plant would be ready in two years.

My new corpus has been saying for 10 years that the desal plant will be ready in two years.

So if we're looking to cutbacks this year, a desal plant might open doors to a long-term

future of more water supply here.

And it has all kinds of questions and problems anyway that will have to be addressed.

But when it comes terms to avoiding emergency this year, desalination is not.

So just to be clear, when you say emergency, you're talking about cutbacks on water use imposed

on residents.

When you say catastrophe, though, as you said in that initial story, what is the scenario

there?

What would cutastrophe mean?

So catastrophe is running out of water.

It's going all the way to the end and crashing.

And how likely is that?

How likely is that?

That depends on who you ask.

But it is certainly a possibility, and it's because the chemical plants and refineries

can't shut down.

People could use a small amount of water, but the industry has to continue consuming until

we get to the end.

So the real question here is, will they be able to bridge that gap before water supplies

are depleted and the system fails?

Part of that industry, I mean, supplying jet fuel for airports in Texas, for example,

right?

Yes, and that's a big reason nobody wants to shut these plants down.

They supply jet fuel via pipeline to DFW.

So it goes directly there, if the fuel is cut off, then the airport shuts down until

industry is able to develop a workaround.

So it has really big consequences for the entire state.

Dell and Bedouards, with inside climate news and his reporting on the water crisis in

Corpus has led to increased attention and action here, going to have a link to his latest

reporting.

You can check it out for yourself.

TexasStandard.org.

G.

Dell and thanks so much.

Thank you, David.

Digital producer Role Alonzo is with us now.

He's monitoring the talk of Texas.

He's also a Corpus native role.

Welcome home.

David, it's good to be home, but gosh, what a strange time to be back.

All this week before the talk of Texas, we've been talking about water.

I wanted to hear what people thought about the ongoing water situation here in Corpus.

And you know, when I got into town, I hit up a few familiar haunts to me.

I went down into the coal park pier when I got into town.

And I wanted to talk to folks.

And it sounds like a lot of anxiety.

There was a gentleman by the name of Rob T, who I spoke to.

And he also had a lot of frustration with the situation.

And he was asking what city leaders are doing.

He was wondering why a lot more hadn't been done to find new sources of water.

And he was asking questions of what this was going to mean for the next generation.

So I'm going to have a lot more voices from the folks here in Corpus Christi.

I've spoken to at the end of the show today.

Role Alonzo of our digital team back with more later in this broadcast.

But in just a minute, we'll be hearing more on how residents of this area are feeling

about the possibility of a full blown water emergency here.

After broadcasting live from Corpus Christi and the studios of KEDT, our special edition

of the Texas Standard continues in just a moment.

Support for Texas Standard comes from Hilda Brande MBA at UT Austin's McComb School of

Business, providing MBA programs preparing leaders for positive community impact, offering

multiple formats, serving professionals throughout Texas, more at TexasMBA.com.

It's the Texas Standard.

I'm David Brown.

And today we're broadcasting live from Corpus Christi and the studios of KEDT.

We've been hearing a lot about the water crisis and wilders' hope that solutions are on

the way for Corpus Christi.

There's still lots of uncertainty and a batting down for hard times ahead.

Right now, basically, every part of the region has some sort of water use restriction in place

already.

So how do people who live in and around this city feel about what's been unfolding here?

How are they feeling now?

AEDT's Spencer Chiak reports.

In Corpus Christi, water conditions may be low, but the tensions are high.

After years of a looming water calamity, changing plans, and public protests, people I've talked

with don't sound optimistic.

It's a very, very sad crisis we're going through.

Man, I think they need to get on the ball with it.

I don't think there's been enough communication.

Residents frustration seem to fall into three categories.

This satisfaction with the city government's communication, concerns about the choices

local leaders are making and anger from feeling that individuals are being asked to conserve

more water than industrial users.

That one's especially a concern for Naomi Lopez.

This is not just a water supply issue, it's a planning issue, and it's a justice issue.

Families are being told to cut back to conserve and to accept this uncertainty about something

that's basic as turning on a tap.

Lopez is a UT Austin grad student who grew up here.

She was also one of about 20 community members who came to Corpus Christi's March 17th

City Council meeting to speak out.

At the same time, industrial users, especially oil and gas refineries, continue to use enormous

amounts of water with very few limits and with little accountability.

Those sentiments were echoed by Jeff Rodi, a Southside resident who pointed to the city's

growth.

Next, the choices part. For many years, city officials supported the inner harbor seawater

desalination plant, calling it the way to avoid a water emergency.

Some like Lopez opposed the plant being constructed.

It would displace a historically black neighborhood.

It would dump brine into an ecologically sensitive bay.

And even after all that harm, it would not truly solve our long-term water deficit.

Then last year, officials made another choice to put the plant on pause.

Many here now see that as the reason we're now facing a water emergency.

That's despite the fact the plant wouldn't have been completed in time.

Last week, Governor Greg Abbott chastised Corpus Christi for the pause.

He had resident Betty Gallagher echoed those thoughts.

And I think they should have went ahead and done the salization instead of spending money

on something else.

They fluttered, they're squandered the money or they've got it.

They said they got it and said it's all I know.

For its part, the city backs the decision and says it's found a way to keep the region

out of water crisis without the plant.

That brings us to the third thing frustrating people in Corpus Christi.

Communication.

There's a lot of misinformation.

Governor Bill resident John Palacios says it's been a challenge to figure out what exactly

is going on.

One side says one thing, one side says the other thing.

So we don't know, we're not there.

We don't know what they're planning or what the plans are.

So it's kind of hard to make a decision.

It should be noted Corpus Christi officials have publicly pushed back on all of these sentiments.

They cite the water supply dashboard on their website and frequently highlight the billion

dollars being spent to build more water source options.

And that doesn't change just how in the dark and how pessimistic locals like John Palacios

feel.

You know, it's an election year.

So, you know, again, it's like they're just trying to put their best food forward.

And it's, I think it's disrespectful to say the least to the citizens, like just tell

us what's going on, you know, give us a straight answer.

Until the problem solved, which could be a while, it's likely this disconnect between

what the city thinks and how residents feel will continue.

I'm Spencer Chiak and Corpus Christi.

In California, folks often talk about the big one in terms of an earthquake.

Here the big one would be an unprecedented water emergency.

And though what may be unfolding here is the big one for Texas, this issue touches all

of us, no matter where you are, droughts are getting longer and more severe.

Demand is growing from industry and a population projected to swell by record numbers.

Robert Mace is executive director of the Meadows Center for Water in the Environment at Texas

State University.

Robert, welcome.

Thank you for having me.

You know, it's hard for me to completely get my head around what this kind of water crisis

means.

And I'm wondering, what do you see coming next for Corpus Christi?

Can you say a little bit about how this is likely to play out as you understand it?

Well, as you mentioned, the reservoirs are at historic lows.

And it looks like this drought is worse than the worst drought that the city and the

area and the region is ever experienced.

And so, you know, they're pursuing what amount to emergency water supply projects.

So the water well drilling that they're doing, both to kind of supplement their supplies,

as well as the discussions on the seawater desalination project, you know, it's really hard

to look in the crystal ball because people, I think, are concerned about spending a lot

of money and then it's going to rain and you didn't need the project.

But the reality is, is nobody can predict the future and we don't want a future where

Corpus Christi runs out of water.

Here's the thing, though, before there was sort of a race to the area by many industrial

firms, petrochemical firms, all trying to sort of position themselves for doing business

in that region.

There were warnings that this region could not sustain the sort of development that Nueces

County has seen in recent years.

And there are some people who live there who say, you know, without any sort of pro-action,

paying more water to supply the city and the region, this was inevitable.

And now here we are at the doorstep of a real crisis.

And I'm wondering how, I think a lot of people in Corpus Christi are wondering, how did we

get here without taking the steps that we were warned?

We would have to take with the sort of development that we've seen in this area and certainly

without the rainfall, you can't count on that rain in this part of Texas.

So interestingly enough, when you look in the state water plan, the current one, it does

not show that water, or does not show that Corpus Christi has a water supply issue for the

next 50 years.

Whoa.

There's a new plan coming out, a state plan will come out by the end of this year.

I took a look at those numbers and it doesn't show a deficit of water until 2080.

So the next 40 years Corpus Christi should have enough water.

What that tells me is that I don't know that this is necessarily Corpus Christi not planning

to have water for the growth.

I think this is a case of we're seeing a drought that we've never seen before.

In the state plans for water resources, we plan for the worst drought we've ever seen.

And what we're seeing now is this is what happens when we go into a drought for a big city

that it's a drought we've never seen before.

And so how do you come up with new water in a very short period of time for a drought

we've never seen before?

And quite frankly, any city in Texas, more so in the western half of the state than the

eastern, but any city in Texas that relies on what amounts to rain water for their water

supply, faces this potential issue.

Just so happens Corpus is the first big one in recent history that is facing this issue.

Robert Mace Director of the Meadows Center for Water in the Environment at Texas State.

The news roundup is coming up next as the Texas standard continues live from Corpus Christi.

From the Texas newsroom, I'm Alexandra Hart.

A drastic weather change is underway in Texas.

Temperatures are expected to spike this weekend to near record levels.

It's creating a concern for firefighters, especially in the panhandle.

KTZ's Brad Burt has more.

Last year heavy rainfall in the growing season brought up a lot of grass in Texas plain

region and the panhandle, but a record breaking warm and dry winter and late freezes killed

that grass without any added moisture to the ground.

Now that dead grass is potential fuel for more critical wildfires in the area.

An advisory was issued Wednesday from state and federal partners in the region covering

the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles as well as parts of Colorado, New Mexico, and Kansas.

Warning the dry fuel is forecast to reach historic levels between March and April.

I'm Brad Burt in Lubbock.

A federal immigration judge has ended the asylum case for five-year-old Minnesota boy Liam

Conejo-Ramos and his family.

Texas Public Radio's Jerry Clayton reports.

The young boy made national headlines when he and his father were detained in Minneapolis

and sent to the detention center in Dilly.

Liam's family, including his 13-year-old brother and parents, were seeking asylum when immigration

judge John Burns ended their case, which would eventually mean deportation to Ecuador.

The Department of Homeland Security has attempted to fast track their deportation.

Attorneys for the family say they are appealing the judge's decision.

Democratic U.S. Representative Joaquin Castro also vowed to keep fighting for the family

to remain in the U.S., Castro called the decision by the judge both wrong and cruel.

A North Texas utility board plans to meet this afternoon to discuss a state lawsuit over

a proposed Muslim-oriented community.

K.E.R.'s Dillon Duke reports a Cullen County judge approved a temporary restraining order

against the utility board just a day before the planned meeting.

The project formally known as Epic City and now called the meadow as a proposed housing

development that would include a mosque, religious school, and more.

The municipal utility district for Hutton Cullen counties approved a petition to provide

them with services like water and waste management.

But Attorney General compacts and soothe the board and accuses it of helping developers

avoid state scrutiny by circumventing the application process for a new district.

The restraining order restricts the board to only discussing hiring and attorney to defend

against the lawsuit.

It's a big weekend for college basketball in Texas.

Six men's teams are competing in the NCAA tournament.

That includes a match-up tomorrow between Texas A&M and the University of Houston.

On the women's side, there are five teams in the tournament, including top-seated University

of Texas, which plays this afternoon.

I'm Alexandra Hart from the Texas Newsroom.

You're listening to statewide news from public radio stations across Texas.

This coverage is only possible because of support from listeners like you.

You can help sustain and grow Texas news coverage by donating to your local public radio station

today.

It's the Texas Standard, I'm Laura Rice.

Watch Jace Tunnel comb through the beaches outside Corpus Christi long enough and you'll

come to realize it's hard to predict just what he'll find next.

Look what I got today, message in a bottle, look what I'm walking up on, it looks like

a life raft, it looks like olives, huh?

We got something special today.

He's moving around too, Glockus Atlanticus, it's called the Blue Dragon and something you

never want to mess with.

These things are known to just mess people up and actually I'm going to take them off

on my finger right now.

That audio comes from Tunnel's YouTube series Beach Coming, which he produces as the

Community Engagement Director at the Hart Research Institute, a Marine Research Unit

at Texas A&M Corpus Christi, Jace, welcome back to the Texas Standard.

Yeah, thanks for having me, glad to be on.

That's so fun to listen to and really the concept behind your Beach Coming videos is pretty

simple.

You walk at the beach, find something interesting, then film yourself talking about the discovery

for the audience.

How did this get started?

Well originally I started this back in 2017 when I was working for the University

and they had a grant that I was supposed to be going up and down the beach looking for

sea turtles that were stranded.

We were out there, we were counting in dangerous species birds, things like that, but I always

loved photography and videography.

When I was out there, I just started taking random shots of stuff that was washing in and

putting it on social media and somebody said, you need to label that.

I thought, oh my gosh, that's going to be so much work that I did.

I started labeling it and what turned out, it's blown up into this, everybody's following

me to see what's washing up now.

It's what's washing up, but do you ever go out looking for something specific?

That would be very rare.

Sometimes I'll get a notice that there's some scientific equipment that is offshore and

that should be washing in within the next several days, but most days it's not like that.

I never know what's going to show up every day is some kind of treasure hunt.

Well, my guess is early because you got to beat folks to it, but is there a best time

of day to go beach-coming?

Yes, absolutely.

If you can definitely early in the morning, before the sun comes up, there are already

people on the beach looking for sea shells and sea beans and all those things, but if

you can also time it to where it's at low tide and in low tide doesn't always work when

the sun comes up, but if you can be out there at low tide, you go along the debris line

that has been pushed up from when it was high tide and look in there, and that's where

you're going to find a lot of stuff, and then since the water's so far out, you can really

get to areas that you normally can't get to if the water's up higher.

Can beach-coming be a useful way to assess the health of the ocean and its inhabitants?

Yes, absolutely.

If we see certain species wash up or certain things wash up, we know we have good water

quality.

For example, there's something called seafoam and it looks like just foam that washes

in.

Some people might think, oh, there's water's dirty.

What's that from?

But it's actually a good sign of water quality in most cases because that shows that there's

life out in the ocean, and that foam comes in whenever the waves crash along the shoreline.

It's a sign of good health.

What are some of the most surprising things you've found?

Well, I found a safe bowling balls.

I found a prosthetic leg.

I found over 60 messages in a bottle, and those two go somewhere.

I think one of the coolest things about the messages in a bottle is that normally people

put a date on it and then they put a location they threw it in at.

It gives you a lot of information about how the ocean currents work and how long it took

for something to get there.

Just on messages in a bottle alone, we know that we have stuff washing up on our shorelines

here in Texas that comes from all over the world.

Wow.

Do you ever keep anything?

My wife didn't really let me keep anything anymore because I've brought over a lot of stuff

over the years.

But I do keep things like messages in a bottle, and I only keep shells or sea beans or anything

interesting that might be used for educational purposes, otherwise I leave everything on

the beach.

Now, the other caveat to that is that I will bring home things that need to be disposed

of properly, that could be hazard to say sea turtles or birds, and so things like fishing

lines and lures and nets, try to get that stuff off the beach and dispose of it properly.

So I can't harm any more wildlife.

Jace Tunnel is Community Engagement Director for the Heart Research Institute.

We'll have links to his beach combing videos over at texasstandard.org.

Jace, thanks again for joining us.

Thanks for having me.

Support for texasstandard comes from Texas Mutual Insurance Company, a workers compensation

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David Brown, you know when it comes to the musical legacy of Corpus Christi, some familiar

names may come up.

On this program, we've talked about a few legendary icons through the years, presenter

Johnny Canales, or of course the Queen of Tejano music, Selena Quintanilla Perez, among

others, and while such figures continue to loom large in this city, visitors particularly

to the downtown area may encounter the influence of an artist who has had an outsized impact

on Corpus Christi's creative output over the last few years.

Dusty Olavera, perhaps better known by the moniker L Dusty, bridges the sounds of the past

and present with his blend of Latin Grammy-nominated Cumbia Electronica, and he joins us now to

talk about his creative output.

Hey, man, how's it going?

Thanks for having me.

Going great, real honor and privilege to get to talk to you.

As I just mentioned, your sound is very much a blending of the past and the future, and

I understand a lot of that stems from how you kind of got into music through record collecting.

Do I have that right?

Yes, sir.

I started off as a DJ, you know, I've always been into hip-hop music and stuff, and when

I was younger, I really wanted to learn how to scratch and just like be a DJ, like either

DJing at a club or parties or DJing for a rapper or something, and then my mom inherited

this huge record collection from a DJ uncle out in B-Vill, and like, you know, in hip-hop

you sample old records, and that's kind of what I was doing, and then when she got those

records, it was a bunch of Cumbia and Tejano music and old Latin soul and stuff like that

and so I just discovered it naturally just by accident.

And then Cumbia just kind of fell into my lap with naturally being here in Corpus and influences

from Selena and AB and Cumbia Kings and all those guys, you know what I mean?

So it was just a natural thing.

So when folks talk about El Dusty, of course, they're talking about El Dusty from CC, which

could be Corpus Christi, but it also could be Cumbia City, which is the name of your first

full-length album, and obviously there's a, that's intentional, the way that those two

Cs kind of line up, could you say more about what Cumbia City means to you and how Cumbia

City sort of reflects Corpus Christi?

Our city has been under sort of like a rejuvenation process or like the past, you know, forever.

It's always been kind of coming up and at the time I had just moved, you know, down, I

guess I moved downtown a few years before my album, but we, me and my friends, we started

a company called Produce and we sort of do, you know, music videos, graphic design and

we're kind of like an art house and the studio's there and stuff and I'm still there to this

day, but on the album cover you see the downtowns like in ruins, you know, like it's all,

the streets all messed up and they're rebuilding everything in there.

So that was kind of like, it was kind of like my dedication to this city, I'm rebuilding

this music that I'm doing, this Cumbia stuff that's sort of like a remix or reimagined

and my city, I kind of see it reimagined as well.

It used to be kind of like a Tahano Hollywood back in the day and I think that the culture

here is just so influenced by it that like when someone like me before a manager of

generation comes along and we try to change the style a little bit, you know, like it

definitely like opens the eyes to different sort of audiences in a younger, in a younger

audience.

You know, you mentioned something, you mentioned Tahano and I want to sort of zoom in

on that because I think a lot of listeners and other parts of the state associate Corpus

Christie and the sound of Corpus Christie with Tejano, especially given its connection

to Selena and enduring popularity of Tejano and in Southeast Texas.

But I want to ask about its future because as a, as a cross between, you know, traditional

Cumbia and contemporary pop music, when we talk about Tejano today, people often point

to its heyday, you know, they look back at the 80s and 90s that guitar synth pop sound,

right?

Which may not sound that modern to younger ears and I'm curious if you feel that there's

a kind of danger of Tejano getting caught in a sort of nostalgic trap, you know, how

do you keep it growing and evolving as a thing unto itself?

Well, it definitely has, Tejano music is a, is a very regional thing.

I mean, it's called Tejano, you know, it's Texas, it's, it's almost like we, we outcast

it everyone else from doing it by calling it Tejano, you know what I'm saying?

And so, so you have, you have that, first you have that limitation right there.

And I feel like the truth is we kind of have a small, small town mentality when it comes

to our, our, our things, you know, and, and what Tejano, it was, it was, like, you

know, that, that generation that, that was like living it is, is like, you know, they're

getting older and they held onto it for so long and it was, it was kind of easy because

it didn't really get anywhere else, you know, and I'm saying, Texas is so big that you

can, you can just be big here and you can survive off, off making music, you know, and so

I, I kind of feel like we limited ourselves in a way, but now that new generation is kind

of taking the reins and they're like, you know, like, we can't let this die off.

This is part of our culture, you know, and, and I, and I, and I do think that there

are holding onto a lot of those vintage production styles and sounds.

It's cool to see like the nostalgic elements kind of coming back and, and being reworked

into like the new stuff.

You know, on this show, we've, on today's show, we've been talking about concerns about

the future of Corpus Christi, especially as it relates to the economy, but also, of course,

the water supply, that's a big part of what's happening, yeah, for sure, but, but, you know,

you were very much a part of another layer of what the city means.

You know, the, the Corpus Christi's cultural fabric.

And I wonder as you look around at where, where you stand or where things are in the city's

art and music scene right now, are you optimistic about it?

You completely upbeat.

Do you see any issues that, that you face, you know, because I know there are probably

going to be a lot of folks in Corpus listening and thinking, yeah, with someone, you know,

like El Dusty, you know, from your perspective, how do you, how do you see the, the, the

cultural and the music scene right now, you're totally optimistic, do you have any concerns?

I'm, I'm very optimistic about the music scene.

I, I know, I see it for myself, you know, there's, there was a time when it was just like

all electronic music.

Now, I don't know what it is, but this new wave of kids is just coming around and there's

all these garage bands going on and there's all these people, yeah, it's like starting

live bands and live music is, is kind of coming back.

And I'm, you know, that, that gives me a lot of hope, my, my, my wife runs a, um, an

all girls after school program called Chica's Rock and she teaches girls how to play music.

She's, she's going on 15 years and a lot of those girls are in bands now and they play

in multiple bands and they're one of the best musicians in the band, you know, so it's

like, so I'm very optimistic about the, about the music scene, but, you know, Corpus in

general, the, the water crisis that we have, like, that's something, you know, that makes

everybody a little nervous, you know what I mean?

And, and we, we hope for the best, but also like, it's, you know, it's one of those things

that you just got to like, you know, you got to vote for the right person or, or, or,

you know, and sometimes even when you do it, it kind of, it kind of comes back around

and they change our policies, you know what I mean?

So let's just hope that we can, we can get out of this water crisis, you know, and, and

see what happens, and hope that our, hope that our city leaders can, can make the right

decisions and, and do the right thing.

Dusty Olivaera is Corpus Christi based DJ and a mainstay of the city's cultural scene.

We've been talking about his career, the creative future of Corpus Christi and more, and we'll

have a link to more texistandard.org.

Dusty, thanks so much for talking with us and congratulations on all your success.

I appreciate it, man.

Thank you.

Support for texistandard comes from H.E.B. and the My H.E.B. app, which is available

for download and shopping press departments like Seafood, Produce, Bakery, and Deli and

scheduling curbside pickup or home delivery, more at H.E.B.com.

It's the texistandard.

I'm David Brown.

I guess most of us have an idea of what an aquarium is, but here in Corpus Christi the

texist state aquarium is something else altogether.

It's more than just putting marine life on display.

It's running one of the largest coastal wildlife rescue operations in the country.

From rehabilitating injured dolphins and seabirds to responding to mass cold stun events that

can leave hundreds of sea turtles stranded, their teams always on the front lines of Gulf

Coast Conservation.

Joining us now to talk about that work and what it means for the Lone Star State is the

CEO of the texist state aquarium, Jesse Gilbert.

Jesse, welcome to the standard.

Thank you David.

Appreciate it.

When people hear aquarium, I guess they do think of exhibits and you have those, but you

also run this, I believe it's described as the largest coastal wildlife rescue program

in Texas, certainly, and certainly one of the largest in the country too.

What does that mean in practice on a given week?

Absolutely.

So we typically talk in terms of sea turtles so that people can visualize that.

We can hold about three to five thousand sea turtles at one time and so it's a monster

program and it's been activated for large scale events, particularly with cold stun sea

turtles in the last couple of years.

So the program, you know, you'll have weeks where you don't really see a lot of activity

and then you'll have something pop up and you've got to respond to all sorts of different

weather events, different challenges that wildlife face in the Texas coast and parts

of inside of Texas.

Yeah.

Sea turtle is obviously a big deal there, but I have a recollection of other like large

fish being carried over to where you folks are.

Am I dreaming or does that sort of thing happen?

It happens periodically, not as much.

It's mostly turtles, birds, the occasional dolphin were actually now the only manatee

rescue facility permitted on the Gulf Coast outside of Florida.

So it's a broad range of different animals, fish, certainly be one of them.

We've done some things where we've had to rescue coral out of Florida and from coral

into corpus Christi.

So it's a very, very broad program and it's one of the more exciting things that we do.

Let's go back to those turtles for just a moment.

Typically what happens to those animals once you get them and how fast do you have to respond?

If it's a cold stunning, it's actually a really intense about seven or ten days.

So the cold weather comes through, it takes about 24 hours for the turtles to become basically

hyperthermic and they're unconscious.

We'll go out rescue those animals along with our partners from the Texas Parks and Wildlife

Department, the general land office, bring those animals in.

We warm them up just like you would see a human during a cold front.

We let them swim and if we see that they're swimming actively, once the water in the Gulf

is back up to about 58, 59 degrees Fahrenheit, we release them.

So it typically is seven to ten days they're here and we can get back out.

I've got to get them past that stress point, speaking of stress points, what's your stress

point?

I mean, what sort of events?

What sort of events do you have space for staff, coordination with partners, what's the

pinch point for you?

I would say it's always staff, it's always the human side of what we try to do.

We've got a rather large facility.

We actually can make the whole program mobile so we can actually put this program on the

road.

We could go recover thousands of animals anywhere we actually have a road.

So it's intense, but there's a lot of really good partners that we work with at the state

and federal level.

It's a lot of fun.

For someone listening far from the coast, we broadcast statewide and I think that some

may be asking themselves, well, okay, what's the real world impact of this work for me

if I'm in Amarillo or Austin or someplace else?

Why should I care about what's happening there in the bay?

It's a great question.

So we went down a study.

We worked with a firm that does some very, very interesting economic impact studies and

we worked with some experts on sea turtles and coastal fisheries and some different things.

And we came to find that a turtle that's released from our program has a pretty significant

economic value to the state of Texas for fisheries.

The green sea turtle population keeps the sea grass beds healthy, which is where all

the fish that we all fish for grow up.

And I might add that if you are anywhere along the Texas Gulf Coast, you owe it to yourself

to go and check out the Texas State Aquarium.

It is a first-class place and Jesse Gilbert is the CEO there.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Appreciate it, David.

Thank you.

And you are listening to the Texas Standard.

Digital producer and corpus Christi native role Alonzo monitoring the talk of Texas

today.

Well, welcome back.

Hello, David.

So yeah, even ahead of this show, you know, the news of the water situation here in corpus,

weight pretty heavily on my mind as a corpus native.

And to think about some of the things outlined in Dylan Bedore who we had on the show earlier

about in his reporting, you know, in particular, it feels a bit surreal to wrap your head around.

And you know, that sense of anxiety I've noticed is shared by many corpus residents.

People like Quimbee who I met down by the Cole Park Pier earlier in the week.

I've been living here my whole life.

I've never heard of us running out of water.

So it's a scary thought.

And I would hate to have to move away or, you know, to have to, you know, to do things

that we don't normally do as a city.

But to talk of Texas this week, I asked folks about their concerns over to water supply

and I wanted to hear from corpus residents in particular ahead of today's special broadcast.

So when I rolled into town and made sure to go by a couple of popular local spots to

see what folks had to say, people like Jeffrey Rising who wondered why desalination plans

had not yet been installed.

You know, so more desalination plant can be installed, could be put in and we can take

those resources and make abundance of them.

And then you also had folks like Alison Morris who I met at the local farmer's market and

who's concerned about the environmental impact of desal plans as well as local high volume

water users.

So yeah, I don't think that the desal plan the city is trying to push is helpful.

I don't think that any solution should be on the residents to pay for.

I think we should be addressing the industry water usage.

And then you had folks like Solay and Jessica.

Solay is planning to move down from across the state for school, but the situation makes

it difficult to plan for that.

I don't want to move to a new city and then then take advantage of us and up these like

surcharge water and electric, it's really scary to have to think about like living like

month to month kind of thing.

And especially because like I don't want her, her life just to be like, okay, we're coming

into this situation is going to be, we don't know what's going to happen.

So lots of anxieties and uncertainty and a lot of frustration there, David, but you

know, I did hear a lot of through lines from folks that I talked to.

A lot of folks wanting the city to come together, a lot of folks, I mean, we heard from

Aldusti earlier in the podcast, sharing similar sentiments that, you know, there's some

optimism that folks can come together to get things done.

I think a lot of folks are just looking for signs of that.

And you know, last night, you know, we were at the KEDT here at the Food and Wine Festival.

Right.

You know, a lot of folks came up to our table.

It was great meeting folks out in the community and hearing their thoughts on it.

And I think that was something I encountered as well.

You really got a sense of the spirit of community here in Corpus Christi.

And no matter what, it seems like there's a genuine resilience and people coming together

to try to find ways out of this and wanting to do something about it.

Obviously, it's a, there's a sense of urgency, but at the same time, a real spirit of the

city.

And that was really wonderful to see.

I'm headed out to high-ho restaurant here.

I haven't told it's a must-taste Mexican experience.

At a time for today's special live broadcast from the studios of KEDT in Corpus Christi.

Want to thank all the good folks here who've made us feel so welcome Don Dunlap, Myra

Lombardo, Bob Scott, Lon Gonzales, news director Spencer Chiak, and news editor Ross Bosscap.

And many wonderful folks and dedicated listeners we've met here in Corpus Christi.

On behalf of the entire Texas standard team, I'm David Brown, wishing you a wonderful

weekend.

On the topic support for Texas standard comes from Casey and Scott O'Hare, the Winkler

Family Foundation, Lynn Dopson and Greg Woldridge, Adrian Kellham, and the George Huntington

family.

With your company or organization, might be a sponsor as well.

Contact your local station for opportunities within your community.

For statewide sponsorships, visit texaspublicmediumnetwork.com.

Thanks so much for listening to the Texas Standard, KUT and the Texas Standard are members

of the NPR Network.

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You can find more shows in the network wherever you get your podcasts.

I'm David Brown, we'll see you tomorrow.