(This story was updated to add new information.)
The Inner Harbor desalination plant is expected to be brought back to the Corpus Christi City Council this month with a proposal from a new contractor.
The recommended plans to revive the project are outlined in a memo sent from City Manager Peter Zanoni to City Council members on Nov. 7.
In it, he wrote that he had revisited the project over recent weeks “without City Council coordination,” contacting the company that had been second in ranking for the original contract to design and build the plant.
It’s part of his job to ensure that “we continue delivering essential services and infrastructure that enable Corpus Christi and the region we serve to grow and thrive,” Zanoni wrote.
Proposed for development off Nueces Bay Boulevard and West Broadway Street, the plant has been planned to generate as much as 30 million gallons of treated water per day.
The project ground to a halt in September, when the council voted 6-3 to end design for the plant.
Since then, its fate has been unclear as dispute over its construction has continued.
The group that may pick up the mantle is Corpus Christi Desalination Partners, according to Zanoni’s memo — an entity that lists within its company lineup Acciona, MasTec, Reytec and Ardurra.
The first-ranked bidder, Kiewit Infrastructure South Co., was the firm that had been originally awarded the contract late last year.
The company had estimated plant development at nearly $1.2 billion, a price tag that caused several council members and many residents to balk.
A meeting with Corpus Christi Desalination Partners representatives culminated this week with “a formal commitment from CCDP to develop a new proposal with price certainty for design and construction options,” Zanoni wrote in his memo.
The steps to a proposed contract are listed sequentially in the document, beginning Nov. 18 with the council’s consideration of plans for discussions with CCDP.
Should those plans be approved, a proposal laying out costs of design and construction could come as soon as next month, the memo shows, with a potential contract drawn up for approval around March or April.
There would be no costs leading up to a potential contract under the plan, according to Zanoni’s message.
He added in the message that should the contract be approved, he would pursue brokering a 30-year agreement for operations and maintenance, intended to “ensure the plant is managed by an experience desalination operator, reducing risk to the City and accelerating readiness.”
The outcomes
Zanoni told the Caller-Times on the afternoon of Nov. 7 that he believed there is a significant difference in the proposals that may, in the upcoming discussions, lead to a different outcome than in September.
The largest issue ahead of the vote had been “that the price was escalating and unknown and it was, in the council’s eyes, too expensive for the ratepayer,” he said.
The cost estimate that had been provided by Kiewit was delivered about seven months after the contract award.
In this case, a cost estimate would be established early on in the process — prior to consideration of a contract — with various options provided for the plant’s design and operations based on that price, Zanoni said.
“We’ll know what we can get in terms of construction options or operations options in the plant and then the council can decide in the upfront — do we want to continue, even before we enter into a contract,” he said.
It appears likely that CCDP’s estimate will be lower than Kiewit’s, Zanoni added.
Groundwater
Zanoni’s announcement follows heightened scrutiny over the city’s plans to continue pursuit of groundwater as a method of fulfilling demand.
The City Council in recent weeks has given a preliminary nod to purchasing the rights to as much as 24 million gallons of groundwater water per day, pumped from a roughly 23,000-acre property near Sinton.
The city also currently operates several wells — with more in development — for groundwater out of rural areas of Nueces County.
Surrounding residents of the proposed and working well fields have pushed back on the city’s efforts with concerns of potential subsidence, decreased water availability and deteriorated water quality.
Zanoni notes in his memo that in recent weeks, “it has become increasingly clear that while groundwater will continue to serve as an immediate water supply during the current and future drought, we must manage these resources carefully, using them intermittently.”
“The drought that we’re in, and any future drought that we’re going to be in — which we will be — we cannot groundwater our way out of it,” Zanoni told the Caller-Times. “We just can’t. There’s not enough science on groundwater.”
Ideally, the city will secure seven or eight different water sources that will provide a greater array of options, said City Councilman Gil Hernandez.
“If you have multiple groundwater sources, you don’t have to pull from them 100% of the time,” he said. “You can let some rest and use other ones.”
Funding has already been allocated toward the Evangeline project, as well as wastewater reuse, he said. Bringing an Inner Harbor project on will come down to budgets and how to weigh the initiative against other potential options, such as a desalinated groundwater project proposed by the South Texas Water Authority from an area near Driscoll.
The idea is to not “get over our skis in terms of how much we can afford,” Hernandez said.
“This has to be thought out financially … and it can’t be just because it’s cool,” he said. “It’s got to be a financially sound decision.”
The controversy
Efforts to make the proposed Inner Harbor desalination plant a reality have been ongoing for years — during which time, lines have been starkly drawn between support and opposition its development.
Supporters of the project have described the plant as an integral prong to shoring up water supply for the drought-ravaged region, asserting the infrastructure as necessary to maintain and grow the economy in the Corpus Christi area.
It can be accomplished in an environmentally responsible way, proponents have said.
Opponents have criticized its location — adjacent to a historically Black and Hispanic neighborhood — its potential impacts to the Corpus Christi Bay and the cost estimate that swelled from about $757 million to nearly $1.2 billion.
Critics have also cast doubt on whether residents are the intended beneficiaries of the water.
Zanoni’s memo detailing efforts with CCDP comes on the heels of Mayor Paulette Guajardo’s Nov. 6 announcement in her State of the City address that the Inner Harbor desalination project would return to the City Council soon for renewed consideration.
As part of her Nov. 6 address, Guajardo described the drought as “stressing our reservoirs and every sector of our community,” but highlighted industrial and maritime sectors.
“On behalf of the 100,000 Corpus Christi families whose livelihoods are tied to industry, I want to say with absolute clarity as your mayor, I support our great jobs and I believe in our great future,” she said. “We will continue to stand firmly in support of our maritime and industrial base because thousands of families depend on these jobs to pay their mortgages, to send their children to college and to build a better future.”
Responding to Guajardo’s announcement on Nov. 6, a local environmental organizer wrote in an email to the Caller-Times that the plant is “an even worse idea now than it was two months ago when six Council members wisely voted to cut our losses and move on.”
“The Council has made huge investments in other water sources since then,” wrote Chloe Torres, Texas Campaign for the Environment’s Coastal Bend regional coordinator. “Trying now to bring back such an obvious dud lays (bare) that our mayor cares more about pleasing (Texas Gov.) Greg Abbott than protecting Corpus Christi ratepayers or the health of our bay.”
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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Inner Harbor desalination planned to return under new contractor