Corpus Christi City Council explored in a non-voting workshop Friday how they could keep the Inner Harbour Desalination plant going after voting last month to stop funding a contractor to design it. At the end of the meeting, little was clear about future water supplies but a suggestion by City Manager Peter Zanoni that the City will “likely” cancel their contract with that contractor, Nebraska-based Kiewet.
After exploring four options for continuing their quest for the desalination plant, discussion ran aground on many of the same questions as the Sept. 2 Council decision that effectively stopped the project.
“Here’s my problem, we still don’t know the cost,” Corpus Christi At-Large Councilmember Carolyn Vaughn said. “We’re still the same place we were before when I said [during the Sept. 2 Council meeting], ‘I want to know what the cost is.’”
Whether the City or a Houston utility bank owning and operating the plant–Gulf Coast Authority expressed interest–it’ll likely be the same or higher than the $1.2B estimated in the last meeting, now that there’s debts to pay from developing the project.
The city needs water now, as District 5 Councilmember Gil Hernandez pointed out during the meeting, but desal won’t be able to deliver for more than three years in a best case scenario. It could even be six years, Council members were told.
“We need to focus on the items that would help us avoid [further decline of water supply],” Hernandez said. “None of the options associated with desal in the Inner Harbor would have helped us avoid [supply] curtailment, because it doesn’t deliver this in the amount of time that we need it for.”
City staff will now ask the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB) if it can use its loan from the agency for desal to pursue other more immediate water projects, like the groundwater wells outside of the city.
It’s still possible that Corpus Christi could cancel the project altogether, with Corpus Christi water users—at least those inside city limits—bearing the cost of the TWDB loan.
There’s still no immediate answer as to how Corpus Christi will get more water, but expect the City Council to revisit these issues at their Oct. 7 meeting. The only certainty is that an answer can’t come soon enough, as City staff expect to enact their most severe water restrictions next year without significant changes.
