Yeah , you can drive across what was once the lake and old buildings from when they originally dammed and flooded the area are fully out of the water. It's now full of grass to the point people are grazing animals in the lake. The whole area has been barren from the prolonged drought even opuntia cactus were dying off. The soils in the area are shrinking swelling black clay which breaks foundations ,pipes and roads in these extreme cycles so there are other major knock on effects from this and when the rains eventually do hit hard enough the swell cycle will rebreak everything again. The roads become damn near undrivable from the potholes and "gilgai" that develop. Price of fracking is getting higher because they need so much water and some places it's just not economically viable until there is more water, lots of that oil is shut in but might come out in another wave of water comes back .

I had mentioned previously on here the emergency wells that are tapped nto section of gulf coast aquifer that's both heavily contaminated with naturally occurring radioactive minerals and tests high for beta particle emissions and it's also near toxic waste injection wells . To top it off it will most likely cause serious saltwater intrusion into the aquifer if the pumping is aggressive as there is already lots of salty patches and intrusions .

Socially the activist community is burnt out there and everything that the groups I worked with and even cofounded lobbied the city council about for the last probably 8 years at this point have been proven true.

The industry purchase price for politicians there is under 200k , even as low as 50k and they don't need many. We got some of our people in office but they couldn't move the needle in positive direction for multiple reasons. The industry gets long term contracts made with the city during cycles when they have full control, that pushes everything up to judges who are also in industry pocket.

Part of this is manufactured disaster to try to force through the desalination. The industry is basically setting up the crisis to get all the water stuff they want passed. The industry subsidies and tax on the working class there are insane near feudalism levels. Some of the highest property tax and utilities prices in the country, third most expensive if you count income ratio.

The soil everywhere has 3 inch cracks in it , when some rain recently hit it all just went straight down the cracks , which is normal but usually the cracks shrink. They didn't close at all. When the top black clay layer is cracked all the way down to the caliché the water hits the caliché and just drains so it takes a lot more to seal it back.

The water has already been more disgusting than usual for like 2 years.

Anyways I been setting up in the Appalachian mountains out east now where rain falls from the sky and temps are significantly cooler.

The west (Cali Oregon) is impossible because the regulatory state makes homesteading or existing on land practically illegal and water rights are difficult to come by even if you have the money. The states are collapsed enough to have thousands of homeless tent cities but still highly focused and capable of spotting someone growing food on their land and living in shack they built from the air then sending in jackboots.

Texas is just fucked from the lack of rainfall and insane heat 6-9 months of the year. Even up north in texas my brother had 2 rivers run dry and 200+ year old pecan ecosystem had near total death. Lots of these areas of Texas have long drought periods but historically they weren't permanently occupied they were full of migratory bands like Commanches. Everyone has been moving to Texas in droves , Austin is like California , almost like ½ the city is new people.

The Appalachian area in in now is doing good, everyone here hates the government and isn't insane like west coast people or apathetic like Texas people , way more grounded , everyone is growing food and there's legit community out here. There are actually many climate refugees moving to the mountains and it's making for some interesting mixes of people making spontaneous mutual aid societies. The soil out here is terrible though and needs lots of inputs to get up to being highly productive , unfortunately the costs for remediating this area with lime and fertilizer is at prohibitive levels from the Iran war and general inflation.

I will come back and do an update about the corpus water situation once the water supply hits the next stage of collapse it wouldn't surprise me if it gets to the point of rationing and water bottles being distributed. Corpus does have a pipeline to other lake areas and to the east where rainfall is more consistent so they can probably maintain subsistence level flows. At some point soon there could be a battle where the city politicians have to choose between giving industry the water or actual humans and it's going to get some people up in arms because the industry shills have already said on camera they are going to go until they can't for the industry,, the can't part means the citizens physically force them.