Texas is following in the footsteps of Australia and Saudi Arabia in bringing desalination online as a component of urban water supplies in the drier parts of the state, below which deep brackish aquifers are common.
In particular, San Antonio is an enormous city which is only fed by trickles from the drier parts of the state. The next major basin, the Colorado, has more water, but it feeds the rapidly growing central Texas metropolis which includes Austin, and we are unprepared to share; at present the reservoirs are far below capacity and the prognosis for ever refilling them is uncertain…