Corpus Christi city council voted to review a new desalination proposal as the city prepares for a key June vote on the Inner Harbor desal plant.<\/p>\n
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 As the city prepares for a long-awaited June vote on the Inner Harbor desalination plant, Corpus Christi leaders are now considering an additional proposal that could put another water project on the table.<\/p>\n
After more than two hours of discussion, the Corpus Christi City Council voted 6-2 to move forward with evaluating a proposal from AXE H2O for a new desalination plant.<\/p>\n
Tuesday’s vote does not approve the project but instead directs city staff to review the company\u2019s business proposal.<\/p>\n
The discussion comes as city leaders continue weighing multiple solutions to address ongoing water supply concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI support water projects, but it is our City Manager who needs to say this is a viable one. This one has been vetted to the degree that you all need to consider it,\u201d said Corpus Christi Mayor Paulette Guajardo.<\/p>\n
Guajardo, who has supported moving forward with the Inner Harbor plant, said she does not believe an additional desalination project is necessary.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a 30 MGD plant right around the corner June 2nd, we have a vote to take that to 60 percent design. We have an MOU currently with CPS Energy in San Antonio for the Barney Davis plant in Flower Bluff,\u201d Mayor Guajardo said. \u201cWe do not need a third desalination plant.”<\/p>\n
Some council members raised concerns that the proposal had not been fully vetted before being presented.<\/p>\n
\u201cConcerned about this continued effort to present shiny objects which I think deter us from where our focus should be, which are the projects that are fully vetted, fully permitted, and available to vote on,\u201d said Councilman Mark Scott.<\/p>\n
Other council members said they are open to reviewing all potential options as the city faces a pressing water crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wanna hear it, and I think it’s important. And if we don’t like it and it doesn’t look possible, then you just don’t do anything, but you don’t let something pass by unless you know what it is,\u201d said Councilwoman Carolyn Vaughn, who placed the item on Tuesday’s agenda.<\/p>\n
Some council members also criticized City Manager Peter Zanoni, saying the proposal should have been reviewed by staff before being brought to council.<\/p>\n
Zanoni said the review process would not require significant city resources at this stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cReally it won’t take much staff time because the company’s gonna have a lot more work to be done before we look at anything else,\u201d Zanoni said.<\/p>\n
In a statement, AXE H2O said it could produce up to 150 million gallons of water per day within two years of construction and aims to develop a low-cost, reliable and environmentally sound solution along the Intracoastal Waterway.<\/p>\n
City staff will now evaluate the proposal and report back to council as discussions continue ahead of the June vote on the Inner Harbor desalination project.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi city council voted to review a new desalination proposal as the city prepares for a key…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":280538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-280555","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\/280555","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=280555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/280555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/280538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=280555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=280555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=280555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}