\u201cTexas needed a sustainable supply of water in that area to protect the industry,\u201d said Byrum, a veteran water manager with silver hair and a charming drawl. \u201cThis was the way to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Port of Corpus Christi never secured financing for the multi-billion-dollar project, so Byrum would fund it one piece at a time. He took up collection, not from the region\u2019s large industrial water users like ExxonMobil, OxyChemical and Valero, but from small towns and rural utilities in the hinterlands of San Antonio, 150 miles from the coast, that could theoretically be connected by pipeline to the desalination plant, according to records obtained by Inside Climate News.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The agency collected $6.4 million from 18 cities, towns and utilities since March of last year, records show, while it doled out lobbying and engineering contracts for the Harbor Island desalination project near Corpus Christi.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Executives collected money from as far away as the city of Kyle, south of Austin, where NRA\u2019s chief operating officer at the time presented the City Council in October with plans to build the enormous pipeline from the coast by 2032, and an opportunity to reserve some of its water.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re actually 90 percent sold out now,\u201d Travis Pruski, the official, told the City Council. \u201cYou would buy the last 10 percent of the water.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TexasDesalinationDibs750px.png\"\/)
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/TexasDesalinationDibs750px.png\")
<\/p>\n
However, records show, Kyle bought the water, but Pruski didn\u2019t stop selling. The agency continued to sell reservations for five months after Kyle paid its $500,000 deposit. In fact, the water was never sold out, records show.<\/p>\n
Pruski resigned from the NRA in May, after alleging that Byrum misrepresented financial figures to Corpus Christi\u2019s City Council and the agency\u2019s board members. Byrum denies that and continues his work to build the desalination plant.<\/p>\n
Pruski, a career fundraising professional and former mayor of the small town of Poth, declined to comment on the specifics of his time with the NRA or the allegations in his resignation letter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not really wanting to talk about that right now,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve kind of moved on with my life.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In May, Byrum\u2019s NRA announced a partnership with Israeli desalination giant IDE Technologies, which described the Harbor Island plant<\/a> as the largest seawater desalination project in the Western Hemisphere.<\/p>\n First outlined in 2017<\/a> by the Port of Corpus Christi, plans for Harbor Island stalled amid feuding with the city government and its competing desalination project.\u00a0<\/p>\n Later, the little NRA faced steep skepticism over its wherewithal to take on such an enormous endeavor.\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, the partnership with IDE, a global leader in seawater desalination, marks the strongest sign yet that the landmark project could become a reality. It also means future Texans might pay a foreign company for water.<\/p>\n IDE would own and operate the facility, selling water manufactured through high-tech and energy-intensive processes to the NRA through a public-private partnership.<\/p>\n \u201cThey need authority to sell water in Texas and we are that authority,\u201d Byrum said in an interview. \u201cWe\u2019re going to make sure there is some downward pricing pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n The plant design will come first, he said, then the design of local pipelines to Corpus Christi and the region\u2019s industrial complex. After that they\u2019ll design the 200-mile pipeline to the 15 other small cities and districts that have paid to reserve Harbor Island water.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019ll happen,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Byrum acknowledged he\u2019s faced plenty of doubt about the NRA\u2019s ability to pull this off. Some skepticism comes from the NRA\u2019s seemingly out-of-the-blue decision to take on such a challenge, and some stems from its reputation as an authority that does river clean ups, not $6 billion development projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the Corpus Christi City Council voted to put a $2.7 million deposit on the NRA project last year, Mayor Paulette Guajardo opposed it.\u00a0<\/p>\n After Pruski\u2019s resignation raised questions about the project, Guajardo said the NRA should refund Corpus Christi\u2019s deposit.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were serious concerns,\u201d she wrote on Facebook in April. \u201cI did not see a clear, logical plan, funding mechanism, or sufficient information.\u201d<\/p>\n None of the cities that paid deposits have publicly alleged wrongdoing by the NRA, and an internal review by the NRA last month cleared the executive director of malfeasance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Corpus Christi city manager Peter Zanoni supported paying the reservation fee in October and described it as a gamble that the city, critically short<\/a> on water, needed to take. The deposit, he said in an interview, was \u201cseed money to see if they can advance this project.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThere is risk in that. We know that,\u201d he said. \u201cThe money is really being used to help develop potential for a project with an agency that has no money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Seawater Desalination in Texas<\/p>\n Headquartered in the town of Uvalde, 80 miles west of San Antonio, the NRA doesn\u2019t manage any reservoirs. The agency\u2019s largest assets are a small wastewater treatment plant and land it owns. Its annual budget of a few million dollars has primarily funded outreach and education programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n In terms of developing infrastructure, the NRA contributed to the construction of the Choke Canyon reservoir, one of two western water supplies the city of Corpus Christi relies on. It also worked alongside the Port of Corpus Christi Authority and the city of Corpus Christi to construct the Mary Rhodes Pipeline, which carries water into the city from Lake Texana 100 miles away.<\/p>\n The agency\u2019s small budget didn\u2019t stop Byrum from sending a proposal to the Port of Corpus Christi Authority in 2024, offering to orchestrate the development of its multi-billion-dollar seawater desalination plant on Harbor Island.<\/p>\n The proposed facility would produce 100 million gallons of potable water per day, twice as much as the largest desalination plant in the nation currently, in San Diego, and enough to supply some 400,000 Texas households.<\/p>\n The project plans call for two gargantuan tunnels, 60 feet underground, running 1.8 and 3.1 miles into the Gulf of Mexico to take in seawater<\/a> and discharge<\/a> brine in enormous quantities.\u00a0<\/p>\n These types of facilities are complicated to develop and expensive to build, said Don Roach, former assistant general manager of the San Patricio Municipal Water District near Corpus Christi, who previously worked on a seawater desalination plant in Saudi Arabia with the engineering firm Bechtel.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019ll ever happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n What came as a surprise to Roach was that the NRA\u2019s board of directors, appointed by the governor, would allow the agency to take on a project of this scale.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cYou can be well-educated and smart, but that desire for power\u2014and I don\u2019t know why you even consider that if you\u2019re with a state agency\u2014it just overwhelms everything,\u201d Roach said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even though Roach has no faith in this project, Corpus Christi has found itself in a position where it\u2019s going to have to do a desalination plant, he said.<\/p>\n So the NRA took on a lease for Harbor Island in 2024 while Byrum set out to gather funds.\u00a0<\/p>\n The NRA said it collected $700,000 in water reservation fees and had paid roughly $930,000 in preconstruction costs for the Harbor Island plant as of Aug. 31, 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local officials have raised concerns about the NRA\u2019s financing methods. But experts in water infrastructure see nothing unusual in collecting reservation fees. That\u2019s how river authorities in Texas built the state\u2019s reservoirs in previous generations, said Todd Votteler, a former executive manager of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are frequent complaints from local water customers about paying for the water before they need it, but there wasn\u2019t much of an alternative,\u201d he said. \u201cThe customer would be taking a big risk if they did not purchase a portion of the supply in advance when it is available.\u201d<\/p>\n For the most part, Texas river authorities stopped building major reservoirs 40 years ago. None has ever built a seawater desalination plant.\u00a0<\/p>\n Votteler, editor-in-chief of the Texas Water Journal, wondered how the NRA planned to transport its water over hundreds of miles to the customers who paid reservation fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kyle Frazier, a water lobbyist and executive director of the Texas Desalination Association, told a state Senate hearing<\/a> in May that the pipeline infrastructure required for large-scale distribution of desalinated seawater to outlying communities currently makes the water too expensive to sell.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThat kind of blows the financial model because getting those products to the people who need them is expensive,\u201d Frazier told the Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs. \u201cThey just haven\u2019t gotten it to the point where it is financially viable.\u201d<\/p>\n Customers will need to pay more for water, said Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, the committee chair, who has promoted his vision<\/a> for a vast pipeline network linking giant seawater desalination plants with inland cities of Texas.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have run out of the cheap water,\u201d Perry said. \u201cWe are moving towards the desal model for sure.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Texas has fallen behind on its water supply, Perry said, and desalination is its best chance to catch up.\u00a0<\/p>\n IDE, the Israeli desalination developer, announced plans<\/a> in April to build the first seawater desalination plant in Texas at the Port of Brownsville.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOnce you build one, there\u2019s gonna be seven others,\u201d IDE Water Assets CEO Lihy Teuerstein told<\/a> the Senate water committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weeks later, IDE announced its second project in Texas, at Harbor Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Harbor Island Plant<\/p>\n IDE opened its office in Texas<\/a> in 2015, the same year state lawmakers created a regulatory framework<\/a> for seawater desalination and directed the state\u2019s power authority<\/a> to study its electrical demands.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2016, Gov. Greg Abbott toured an IDE facility in Israel, one of the largest desalination plants in the world, according to a press release from Abbott\u2019s office.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThe governor expressed his intention to partner with Israeli technology companies such as IDE to develop and deploy water solutions for Texas,\u201d said a 2016 press release<\/a> from IDE.\u00a0<\/p>\n When it was first proposed<\/a> in 2017, the Harbor Island plant would have been the first of its kind in Texas. The Port of Corpus Christi Authority filed a permit application<\/a> for the project in March 2018.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n At that time, the city of Corpus Christi was also developing plans<\/a> for its own desalination plant. Leaders there envisioned a facility that wasn\u2019t operated by a private company, like others around the world, but by the city itself\u2014the first municipally owned and operated<\/a> seawater desalination plant.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think the public is understanding the significance,\u201d said then-Mayor Joe McComb when the City Council voted to advance the plans at a meeting in August 2019. \u201cWe\u2019re setting this train on track. It\u2019s just a pretty exciting day for me.\u201d<\/p>\n In January 2020 the city requested a permit<\/a> for a project at its Inner Harbor, about 20 miles from the port\u2019s Harbor Island site.\u00a0<\/p>\n Regional water demands couldn\u2019t justify two large plants, officials knew. Whichever project reached completion first would capture most of the market.\u00a0<\/p>\n That\u2019s why leaders in Corpus Christi protested vigorously in April 2022 when they learned that the port had quietly applied for a half-billion-dollar state loan to finance its Harbor Island project. A City Council resolution demanded the port withdraw its loan application and \u201cend any and all attempts to become a water producer.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe city is the water distributor that will own and operate any desal plant,\u201d Corpus Christi City Councilmember Mike Pusley said at a City Council meeting that April when port commissioners came for questioning. \u201cI hope that message gets through.\u201d<\/p>\n Port commissioner Rajan Ahuja said the port was no longer pursuing the loan. Only a preliminary application had ever been filed, he said, and the port\u2019s CEO, Sean Strawbridge, hadn\u2019t notified him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI find that behavior completely disingenuous,\u201d said Councilmember Roland Barrera, describing a history of frustrations with Strawbridge.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI agree with that. It doesn\u2019t matter how smart Sean might be, we all have to play by the rules,\u201d Ahuja replied. \u201cHe\u2019s heard an earful from us in the last few weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement to Inside Climate News, Strawbridge said his loan application was \u201ca pre-application with no financial commitment\u201d submitted to confirm the project was eligible for state funds. Because it involved no contractual obligations for the port, Strawbridge said, he wasn\u2019t required to notify the port commissioners. The chairman of the Port Commission, Charlie Zahn, approved the submission, Strawbridge said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe port keeps rewarding the behavior of its executive team when they do these things that they know are going to perpetuate this disgruntlement between the city and the port,\u201d Pusley said. \u201cWe can\u2019t do this anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n This story is funded by readers like you.<\/p>\n Our nonprofit newsroom provides award-winning climate coverage free of charge and advertising. We rely on donations from readers like you to keep going. Please donate now to support our work.<\/p>\n Donate Now<\/a> <\/p>\n Strawbridge still pushed for the Harbor Island project. Later that year he took a contingent of state and local officials, including the Senate water committee chairman, Perry, to Israel to visit an IDE facility and learn about its public-private partnership method of operation.\u00a0<\/p>\n The port offered to work in partnership with the city, but the city declined.\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2023, Strawbridge resigned. He founded a company called US Desalination and this year announced a partnership<\/a> with IDE to build a seawater desalination plant in Texas, 150 miles south of Corpus Christi at the Port of Brownsville.<\/p>\n Resurrecting Harbor Island<\/p>\n Byrum spent most of his career leading municipal water utilities in cities of San Angelo, Victoria, San Antonio and Corpus Christi, where he was working as assistant director of wastewater in 2019 when he took his present job with the NRA.<\/p>\n Port officials said they were surprised in 2024 when Byrum sent a three-page letter to them proposing to take up the flag of the Harbor Island Project.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cCurrent water supplies are an issue for industries,\u201d the letter<\/a> said.\u00a0<\/p>\n So Byrum suggested a nine-step plan. The first step was for the NRA to sign a lease for Harbor Island.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Port of Corpus Christi is in receipt of an unsolicited offer,\u201d a spokesperson told KRIS 6 News<\/a> at the time. \u201cThe port will evaluate the offer as it would any other.\u201d<\/p>\n Without a lease agreement, the NRA board authorized Byrum in November 2024<\/a> to begin negotiating a contract with the firm Black and Veatch to serve as \u201cAdvisor for Seawater Desalination Project Development.\u201d In March 2025 the board approved the contract<\/a> for $990,000.<\/p>\n Three weeks later, on April 9, 2025, the NRA secured its first reservation fee. The East Central Special Utility District, a small, rural water supplier outside San Antonio, 120 miles from Corpus Christi Bay, paid $196,000 to reserve 7 million gallons per day (MGD) of water from the Harbor Island plant.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Later that month, the nearby Green Valley SUD paid $147,000 to reserve about 5 MGD, and Springs Hill SUD signed over $98,000 to reserve 4 MGD in May. Between June and July, the NRA collected another $200,000 in deposits from seven other towns and utilities near San Antonio.\u00a0<\/p>\n In July, the Port of Corpus Christi agreed to Byrum\u2019s proposal, granting NRA a 50-year lease for Harbor Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n The 137-page lease<\/a> sets out a strict timeline for the NRA. It obliges the agency to have a design engineer with at least 10 years experience of large-scale seawater desalination treatment facilities 10 months into the NRA\u2019s development period. By the fourteenth month, the NRA has to have contracted commitments for at least 25 MGD of produced water. Two years into the development period, the NRA should have its private partner picked out for the project.\u00a0<\/p>\n The NRA would pay the port $32,000 per month, Byrum said in August 2025 when he presented<\/a> his project to the Corpus Christi City Council, seeking a reservation fee.\u00a0<\/p>\n Taking Up a Collection<\/p>\n Byrum told the Corpus Christi City Council that he planned to build the Harbor Island plant and local pipeline system to begin producing 100 MGD in 2029. He said 38 MGD had already been reserved and another 30 MGD was in negotiations.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s first come, first pay,\u201d Byrum said. \u201cOnce the capacity is sold, it\u2019s sold.\u201d<\/p>\n Byrum charged $24.44 per acre-foot of water for localities to reserve the right to purchase water at a later date. But the NRA hadn\u2019t yet determined how much that water would cost, Byrum said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m just fascinated that people are signing reservations without knowing the cost,\u201d said Councilmember Mark Scott, the president of a local title company.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s wet and it\u2019s good quality,\u201d Byrum replied. \u201cThey need water.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Most reservation fees were paid by cities and utilities near San Antonio, Byrum said. The NRA planned to build a pipeline there by 2032, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s the transmission estimate to move water from Corpus to San Antonio?\u201d Scott asked.<\/p>\n \u201cWhole lotta money,\u201d Byrum said. \u201cThree billion bucks?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMore,\u201d Scott said.\u00a0<\/p>\n He asked how the project would be funded. Byrum said it would seek state funding. For now the NRA used reservation fees to hire Black and Veatch for preliminary services, Byrum said.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cSo you have to book enough money in your reservation fees to hire them to go to the next step?\u201d Scott asked.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d Byrum replied.<\/p>\n One month later, in September 2025, the Corpus Christi City Council voted to cancel <\/a>its own $1.2 billion design contract for its 30 MGD Inner Harbor desalination project. In October the council approved a $2.7 million deposit to reserve 50 MGD from Harbor Island.<\/p>\n That was the largest deposit<\/a> the project collected. The second largest deposit <\/a>came from the small city of Kyle, south of Austin. One of the fastest-growing cities in the nation, Kyle struggled for years to keep up with growing local water demand before Pruski addressed the city council.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve Never Seen It This Way\u201d<\/p>\n In a slideshow presentation<\/a> on Oct. 21 to the council, Pruski displayed a map of a 7-foot-wide pipeline running from Corpus Christi to San Antonio, then splitting into a west fork and \u201can east one that\u2019s going to come up this direction towards you guys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe haven\u2019t designed it completely,\u201d Pruski said. \u201cYou want to get early in on this process as we\u2019re going through this pipeline design.\u201d<\/p>\n The NRA believed it could build the massive pipeline in existing state highway right-of-way, Pruski said, avoiding the painstaking and expensive process of acquiring rights from every landowner over 200 miles.\u00a0<\/p>\n The pipeline would serve many communities of the region that have already paid deposits, Pruski said.<\/p>\n That was the meeting when he told<\/a> Kyle officials that the project was nearly sold out: \u201cY\u2019all are taking the last 10 percent, so congratulations.\u201d<\/p>\n Kyle bought the water, but Pruski didn\u2019t stop selling. That month, he delivered the same message in presentations to other small cities near Corpus Christi.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city manager of Portland exceeded his office\u2019s spending limit to pay a nearly $70,000 deposit<\/a> on Oct. 31.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt became an emergency for us to go ahead and reserve that fee so that someone else didn\u2019t jump in,\u201d City Manager Randy Wright explained to the City Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n In nearby Ingleside, Pruski also told the City Council that it was reserving the last available water from Harbor Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAll the water has been spoken for,\u201d Pruski said.<\/p>\n After paying a deposit, Pruski explained, the next step would be to start making take-or-pay contracts in the coming months.\u00a0<\/p>\n That seemed unusual, said David Pruitt, then an Ingleside councilman. He asked why the NRA didn\u2019t just build the plant, then sell its product.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen it this way,\u201d Pruitt said. \u201cAll these entities are paying you to put all this in, and then water time comes, we still got to buy some water?\u201d<\/p>\n Pruski explained that the NRA couldn\u2019t plan its pipeline system unless it had committed customers, so Ingleside signed a $110,000 contract<\/a> on Nov. 4.\u00a0<\/p>\n At its Nov. 14 board meeting, the NRA authorized a slew of new contracts.<\/p>\n That included contracts for \u201cidentifying and establishing long-term funding relationships\u201d with Hugo Berlanga<\/a>, a lobbyist who also works for<\/a> the Port of Corpus Christi and Hicks Pate Strategies, a consulting firm founded in 2024 by Abbott\u2019s former chief of staff<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The board authorized the creation of a nonprofit organization \u201cintended to strengthen the NRA\u2019s capacity to obtain external funding,\u201d and it approved an agreement with Clean Energy Capital<\/a>, a boutique finance firm in San Francisco, for help selecting a private partner in the Harbor Island project.\u00a0<\/p>\n The NRA also approved an agreement<\/a> with Houston-based Civitas Engineering Group to develop a request for proposals, rescinded a contract offer with Black and Veatch and authorized Byrum to conduct negotiations with five other engineering firms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite claims that all its water was reserved, the NRA continued to collect deposits into 2026. In fact the water was never fully reserved, records show.\u00a0<\/p>\n The city of Three Rivers agreed<\/a> to pay more than $82,000 to reserve 1.5 MGD in March. One week later, County Line Special Utility District committed<\/a> to pay the NRA more than $270,000 to reserve 5 MGD. Crystal Clear Special Utility District agreed<\/a> to pay more than $164,000 for 3 MGD in April.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pruski Resigns\u00a0<\/p>\n While Pruski traveled to these cities across South and Central Texas slinging reservation fees for water from a distant desalination plant, he said in a letter<\/a> to the board of directors in March that he was nervous about the numbers Byrum was using.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pruski said he had noticed inconsistencies in the desalination plant\u2019s budget, as well as in how much money Byrum was saying had actually been deposited from the reservation fees.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pruski alleged in the letter that Byrum told the board at an August 2025 meeting that 36 MGD of capacity had been sold and that the corresponding revenue was in the bank. Pruski said that number wasn\u2019t right, only 21 MGD had been committed and paid for at that time.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The board then used that erroneous information to make financial decisions, Pruski wrote.<\/p>\n It happened again, Pruski alleged, in September and October, as Corpus Christi weighed whether to pay a $2.7 million reservation fee.\u00a0<\/p>\n Pruski said that these initial concerns were dismissed without explanation. He was also effectively shut out of further financial deliberations and wasn\u2019t provided documents for a budget he was responsible for, Pruski wrote.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Byrum later said in an interview that the NRA needed to make sure it didn\u2019t commit water capacity twice. He also wanted to ensure that water was going to be available a month or two after Corpus Christi reserved half of the desalination plant\u2019s future capacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t an exaggeration,\u201d Byrum said. \u201cThat was caution on my part.\u201d<\/p>\n Pruski sent his letter to the board two weeks after Abbott threatened to take over Corpus Christi if it couldn\u2019t get a handle on its water crisis.\u00a0<\/p>\n In writing the letter, Pruski acknowledged that it could carry serious professional liability. \u201cI would rather face consequences for speaking the truth than remain silent,\u201d he wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n When the results of an internal NRA investigation into Pruski\u2019s allegations were announced at the most recent board meeting in May and found no wrongdoing by the executive director, Pruski resigned.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t participate in this culture any longer, while you have people with good principles who are sacrificed to sit by, be quiet,\u201d Pruski said to the board. \u201cI just can no longer be part of this organization anymore.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhere Are They Getting Their Money?\u201d<\/p>\n Also in May, McComb, the former Corpus Christi mayor, sent an 11-page letter<\/a> to Byrum alleging the river authority not only lacked the financial sophistication to develop what would be the largest desalination plant in the country, but also the transparency legally required of a state agency.\u00a0<\/p>\n McComb sought to have the NRA release the list of cities that had paid reservation fees to the agency, explain how it planned to use the collected money and share minutes from executive committee meetings in which decisions about Harbor Island were made.\u00a0<\/p>\n The authority\u2019s total program revenues in 2025 were $4.2 million, $1.4 million more than in 2024. However, the NRA has repeatedly spent more money than it earned throughout the past six years.<\/p>\n In its 2025 financial statement and independent auditor\u2019s report<\/a>, the river authority also said that construction of the desalination plant is estimated to cost approximately $6.4 million and will be financed through water reservation fees as well as through bonds. Byrum has widely said the project will cost $6.4 billion\u2014not million.\u00a0<\/p>\n For McComb, it\u2019s a suspect slip-up, not a typo, as Byrum has consistently said in public testimony that the project would cost billions of dollars. To McComb, it was odd that when the audit was returned to Byrum to review and approve, neither Byrum nor any of the NRA\u2019s board members corrected the figure to billions.\u00a0<\/p>\n McComb spent 27 years as an elected official, both at the city and county level, working with financial advisors and bond counsel. After looking at the NRA\u2019s financial reports, he said he thinks nobody in their right mind would be willing to invest in a project of this scale from an organization that small, despite its partnership with Israel\u2019s largest desalination company.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIf I were anybody signing big contracts with the Nueces River Authority, I\u2019d be sending them an invoice at the end of every day,\u201d McComb said in an interview with Inside Climate News. \u201cWhere are they getting their money?\u201d<\/p>\n Byrum responded in a statement, saying he\u2019s \u201cnot sure where McComb is coming from.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are currently in contract negotiations with IDE who has developed over 400 water treatment plants,\u201d he said. \u201cI believe their willingness to work with the NRA speaks to our ability to get the project built.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The 18 cities and water supply companies that paid reservation fees will be asked, at the appropriate time, Byrum wrote in a letter responding to McComb in June, to work out contracts to buy the drinking water they each reserved, as well as how the produced water will be delivered from the desalination plant. The NRA\u2019s water agreements with cities will then be used to prove to investors that the agency will have money coming in, and will be able to repay the bonds it plans to issue.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Most of the municipalities and water supply corporations that have paid a reservation fee are 100 or 150 miles away. As a result, McComb said, the transportation rates will be astronomical.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s obvious to me they\u2019re not interested in getting the water at the lowest price to the consumer,\u201d McComb said.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\tAbout This Story<\/p>\n Perhaps you noticed: This story, like all the news we publish, is free to read. That\u2019s because Inside Climate News is a 501c3 nonprofit organization. We do not charge a subscription fee, lock our news behind a paywall, or clutter our website with ads. We make our news on climate and the environment freely available to you and anyone who wants it.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not all. We also share our news for free with scores of other media organizations around the country. Many of them can\u2019t afford to do environmental journalism of their own. We\u2019ve built bureaus from coast to coast to report local stories, collaborate with local newsrooms and co-publish articles so that this vital work is shared as widely as possible.<\/p>\n Two of us launched ICN in 2007. Six years later we earned a Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, and now we run the oldest and largest dedicated climate newsroom in the nation. We tell the story in all its complexity. We hold polluters accountable. We expose environmental injustice. We debunk misinformation. We scrutinize solutions and inspire action.<\/p>\n Donations from readers like you fund every aspect of what we do. If you don\u2019t already, will you support our ongoing work, our reporting on the biggest crisis facing our planet, and help us reach even more readers in more places? <\/p>\n Please take a moment to make a tax-deductible donation. Every one of them makes a difference.<\/p>\n Thank you,<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260618_NRA_Desal_01-1024x683.jpg\"\/)
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The Nueces River Authority office in Uvalde, Texas. Credit: Jon Shapley\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260618_NRA_Desal_02A.jpg\"\/)
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The sun rises over Uvalde on June 18. Credit: Jon Shapley\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/CorpusChristiTXDesalination750px.png\"\/)
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John Byrum has been with the Nueces River Authority since 2019. Credit: Jon Shapley\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-18-at-4.05.19-PMc-1024x576.jpg\"\/)
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John Byrum presents his plans for the Harbor Island project to the Corpus Christi City Council on Aug. 12, 2025. Screenshot: City of Corpus Christi<\/p>\n![\"Corpus](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-18-at-4.07.34-PMc-1024x576.jpg\"\/)
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Corpus Christi City Councilmember Mark Scott questions John Byrum about the Harbor Island desalination project on Aug. 12, 2025. Screenshot: City of Corpus Christi<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/20260618_NRA_Desal_03.jpg\"\/)
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A truck drives over the Nueces River on June 18 near Uvalde. Credit: Jon Shapley\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/4O6A0169-1024x682.jpg\"\/)
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A sign in Nueces County on March 30. Credit: Dylan Baddour\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/IMG_1258.jpg\"\/)
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The Port of Corpus Christi Authority opened its $41 million waterfront office building in 2021. Credit: Dylan Baddour\/Inside Climate News<\/p>\n![\"Travis](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-12-at-11.51.14-PM-1024x576.jpg\"\/)
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Travis Pruski displays an illustration of a water pipeline running from Corpus Christi Bay to South Central Texas to the city council of Kyle on Oct. 21, 2025. Screenshot: City of Kyle<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Arcelia-Martin-300x300.jpg\"\/)
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