Inner Harbor Desalination Plant.<\/a><\/p>\nThe Far Field Advisory Committee was created by City Manager Peter Zanoni and city water officials to further examine the project and data behind the Inner Harbor desalination plant, which remains at the spotlight.<\/p>\n
The committee is made up of a diverse group of community members, including scientists, conservationists and business owners, and is expected to begin meeting this month.<\/p>\n
At the end of last year, city council members and Zanoni announced plans to form the committee to provide additional review of the project beyond previous staff-led efforts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a great group of people. There\u2019s some brilliant scientists on there,\u201d said Jesse Gilbert, President and CEO of the Texas State Aquarium, who was selected to serve on the committee.<\/p>\n
Gilbert said the aquarium is invested in the health of Corpus Christi Bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe aquarium is a stakeholder on Corpus Christi Bay because the water in the aquarium is from Corpus Christi Bay. So we have a very vested interest in making sure that the bay is healthy,\u201d Gilbert said. \u201cWe\u2019re very pro-fresh water. This community is in a crisis and we need to make sure that to create a resilient Corpus Christi, we have fresh water.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gilbert added that he’s happy to offer his perspective, especially in terms of local wildlife.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city did a good job of making sure that all the different entities were represented. Mixed use of Corpus Christi Bay,” Gilbert said. “I mean, these animals are thriving and so we need to make sure that we keep that balance.”<\/p>\n
David Loeb, another committee member and a local business owner at Landlord Resources, said he hopes the group can help highlight the environmental studies already completed for the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI hope that we can bring greater awareness of the environmental work that\u2019s already been done,\u201d Loeb said. \u201cDoing this study, that can kind of bring some finality to a lot of people who have concerns but maybe have not been engaged as the process and all the environmental work has gone on over the last decade.\u201d<\/p>\n
Loeb said the committee’s community-driven approach may help increase public trust.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt puts people at ease that the city\u2019s doing something and they have environmental regulators who have reviewed it, they\u2019re okay with it, there\u2019s a permit with strict limits on what can happen, and that the bay is safe and we as a community can have water and a good environment,” Loeb said.<\/p>\n
Gilbert said he believes the committee will help better represent Coastal Bend residents when it comes to our local water future.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have great optimism that committee and the makeup of that committee is gonna figure it out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
City water leaders said the committee is expected to meet from January until about April. After multiple meetings and reviews, a final modeling report will then be submitted and presented to the City Council afterward.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new advisory committee will study the City\u2019s proposed Inner Harbor Desal Plant, bringing together scientists, business leaders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122391,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-122390","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122390\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}