When Thiago Campos bought the Mr. Fancy Pants Carwash business in Corpus Christi, Texas, three years ago, he wasn’t thinking about drought. He was familiar with varnishes and waxes and enjoyed figuring out which kind of soap would best remove local dirt.
“I’m a chemical engineer,” Campos said. “I felt like the carwash matched my skill set.” But Mr. Fancy Pants, with its two locations, could soon face an existential crisis. Last week, Corpus Christi’s city manager announced that it may enter a water emergency as soon as May. The city’s two main reservoirs — Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi — are just 8.4 percent full, while the backup reservoir, 100 miles away, is 55 percent full. Without drastic cuts, the water supply for the more than 500,000 residents of the Corpus Christi area could run dry by early next year.
“To be honest,” Campos said, “I bought [the carwash] without really understanding what I was buying into.”
Although it might seem like the city has been abruptly pushed to the brink of disa... Read more
