The city of Corpus Christi plans to turn on its 3-million-gallon water storage tank on Holly Road next week if tests on the tower run smoothly. 

The last time the tower was brought online in 2018, roughly 50 water pipes, mostly on Alameda Street and Port Avenue, burst, sending gallons of water onto streets and yards over two days.

The water tower — built in 2017 and 2018 for $5.7 million — has sat offline since, along with a 750,000-gallon tower on Rand Morgan Road, which was built in 2018. 

The city also plans to turn on the Rand Morgan Road tower in about a month, City Manager Peter Zanoni said. 

This time around, the water towers will each have a permanent pressure reducing valve and a bypass pump, allowing the water pressure released from the towers to be controlled.

In July 2018, bringing the Holly Road water tower online exposed weaknesses in the city's water line distribution system. Pipes broke because they were too old to handle the extra water presser.

Since 2019, the city has invested about $46 million to replace 247,000 linear feet of water pipes.

Before 2019, the city spent $2-3 million a year on replacing water lines. 

Design is expected to start this fall on a third new water tower in Flour Bluff on Starry Road. It will also have a pressure reducing valve and a bypass pump. 

A fourth tower is planned on Nueces Bay Boulevard in 2035 when the city has added about 25,000 water customer connections. There are now about 100,000 connections in the city limits. 

When all three water towers are operating, the current ones on Starry Road, built in 1970, and Rand Morgan Road, built in 1930, roads will be taken offline. 

The other two older tanks on Gollihar Road and Alameda Street will stay online until the one on Nueces Bay Boulevard is built. Those were both constructed in 1950.  

In 2012, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality gave the city a deadline of 2021 to bring four new water towers online, including the ones on Holly and Rand Morgan roads. 

The new tanks would bring the city inline with TCEQ's requirements for water storage. The purpose of the requirement is to ensure the city maintains adequate pressure in its water distribution system. 

The city no longer has a hard deadline with TCEQ to bring the towers online and increase the city's water pressure, Zanoni said. However, the goal is to have the city's water pressure at 72 psi by 2029. 

The city plans to slightly increase the pressure over time, by 2 pounds per square inch every six months, as aging water lines are replaced, Zanoni said.

The city has an average water pressure of 52 pounds per square inch, but some areas have 30 psi, which is considered low water pressure.

Kathryn Cargo follows business openings and developments while reporting on impacts of the city government’s decisions. See our subscription options and special offers at Caller.com/subscribe. 

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