CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Dozens of residents showed up to Ingleside's special city council meeting on Tuesday to protest the objectionable use permit application for an ammonia facility.
One of the residents who showed up was Charlie Boone, who lives near the Enbridge Energy Center. He’s afraid of toxins being released in the community.
“The problem with the ammonia plant they have proposed is the prevailing wind here that comes off the water and goes straight through Ingleside,” Boone said.
Since Enbridge and Yara’s started talking about an ammonia plant, several citizens in Ingleside took action against it.
Ingleside on the Bay Coastal Watch Association is a part of that fight.
“What people are concerned about here — there are people who are retired and older. There are people with kids. They’re concerned about emphysema and asthma. They’re concerned about the amount of wash from these big ships,” Bonne said.
It’s just a few of the long list of questions and concerns from people in this community.
Ingleside Mayor Oscar Adame shared his thoughts on the subject.
“I kept very quiet with this, but I asked Enbridge to be very transparent with our citizens,” Adame said.
After several hours of discussion, City Council members unanimously voted to deny Enbridge and Yara's objectionable use permit application. A bittersweet moment for those against the ammonia plant.
“I was thinking, this is not over and we’re going to have to continue to fight this especially around that objectionable use interpretation by their lawyer and we’ll have to probably get lawyers involved,” Boone said.
As he mentioned, there are permits for that area that were provided by council in 2012 and 2013. Yara's and Enbridge believe the previous permits will allow them to build regardless of the council’s decision on Tuesday.
“Because of approval from city council in 2012 and 2013, this can still be built anyways. That is not the preference of Enbridge and Yara's,” Bell said.
“Ordinance 1061, that states it’s an accumulative objection use area but still there’s still the question of where the carbon will be piped too,” Ingleside City Manager Brenton Lewis said.
KRIS 6 News reached out to Embridge on the situation who sent us this statement.
“We value the input from the community during this week’s city council meeting. We will work to address their concerns as we assess and decide how to proceed with this project.”
City leaders said they plan to look over the permits issued in 2012 and 2013 during an upcoming public meeting and that it does not include ammonia production. They said if the energy company wants to build in Ingleside, it will need a new plan and it will have to submit a new application.
