Oil industry steps into Texas water fight<\/a><\/p>\nCity Manager Peter Zanoni told council the desalination contract is expected to be brought forward for approval on April 28, a key date leaders repeatedly highlighted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe plan on bringing the contract to City Council on April 28 — we\u2019re pretty confident it will be substantially complete,\u201d Zanoni said, noting final timing depends on review by the Texas Water Development Board.<\/p>\n
The project is designed to create a long-term, drought-resistant water supply for the City and region, officials said. Mayor Paulette Guajardo stressed the importance of moving forward without delay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Inner Harbor desalination project is essential to the survival — of this community and region,\u201d Guajardo said. \u201cEvery day of delay increases uncertainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
Staff outlined progress, including ongoing contract negotiations, cost estimates, and project timelines. The current proposal is estimated at $978 million, lower than a previous proposal of roughly $1.3 billion.<\/p>\n
However, officials acknowledged the project is not fully funded, relying in part on state-backed loans that would be repaid over time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a loan — the ratepayer would pay the loan back plus interest,\u201d Zanoni explained.<\/p>\n
Some council members questioned the purpose of the workshop, arguing it did not speed up the timeline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe that this meeting has moved anything forward,\u201d Councilwoman Campos said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Others defended the meeting, saying public updates are important.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the public is interested,” Councilman Scott said. “More is better than less when it comes to these projects.”<\/p>\n
Officials said the current timeline for delivering water from the plant is projected for late 2029, with construction phases expected to follow contract approval.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"City leaders said the project remains on schedule as leaders debated urgency, cost, and transparency at Friday’s special…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":244092,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-244091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244091","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=244091"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244091\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}