- City council
- Approves progress of Inner Harbor Desalination Water Plant
- During Tuesday's city council meeting
On Tuesday, the big topic on the table at City Council was the Inner Harbor Water Treatment Plant. Things got heated from residents who are opposing a 30 million gallon per day desalination plant.
“You’re monkeying around, you’re farting around," resident Blanca Parkinson said. "You’re promising water that we do not have.”
“Why should the citizens of this community have to pay for water that they need," resident Rachel Caballero said.
Other residents, including those living in the Northside Hillcrest neighborhood, believe the city is environmentally discriminating against the historically black community. That is why the Hillcrest Resident Association (HRA) filed an investigation complaint with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HRA member LaMont Taylor said he believed his neighbors have been "picked on to be picked out" by the city of Corpus Christi.
There were also people who believe the facility would become efficient in providing sustainable water to the Coastal Bend
"We are rapidly getting to the point where we have to go to desal. It’s not that we want to do it, but we have to do it," resident Dr. Bryan Gulley, said.
But the biggest curiosity of everyone in the room is the price tag for a desal facility. Corpus Christi Water Chief Operating Officer, Drew Molly, said it will cost around $758 million.
In 2020, the city was approved for a $222 million revenue bond from the Texas Water Development Board for the Inner Harbor facility. The council received the first installment of $11 million and are now asking the approval to receive the remaining $212 million.
“The $212 million is money that we will use at a low-interest rate," Molly said, "We will use that funding over the next three years.”
Council member Mike Pusley said it’s expected that the annual water rate could increase for ratepayers.
“We haven’t developed a complete rate model," Pusley said. "Obviously rates are going to go up for everybody. The days of plentiful cheap water are gone.”
However, council member Gil Hernandez thinks the city is moving too fast in their decision-making and emphasized how this could significantly impact ratepayers by nearly $1 billion.
“I don’t think we have enough information currently in terms of what the cost is going to be and what the long-term impacts of that are to the rates as well as our debt service," Hernandez said. "We would have to increase rates significantly and that goes to everybody’s utility bill. Our utility bills are already the highest in the state.”
A water desalination plant for Corpus Christi has been years in the making. The next step for the city in this project is the procurement process. The topic of desalination will come up again at next week's city council meeting with items slated for a second vote.
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