CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 There\u2019s a growing fight brewing along the Nueces River and it\u2019s all over salt.<\/p>\n
Some residents and landowners say the city of Corpus Christi\u2019s well project, designed to pull millions of gallons of groundwater from the area, is making the river saltier and could threaten the delicate balance of its ecosystem.<\/p>\n
A ride up and down the river shows both the natural beauty of the Nueces and the changes some say are already happening.<\/p>\n
Residents Kelly Harlan and Chris Cuellar have been testing water samples from different points along the river. Their findings show that areas where the city\u2019s wells discharge water are significantly saltier than spots farther upstream.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis has been at 1,200-plus for months,\u201d Harlan said. \u201cAnd that\u2019s going to have a drastic effect on the fish, the birds, the insects….everything that uses this river.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuellar, who owns land along the river, says the data doesn\u2019t lie. He measured total dissolved solids and salinity levels to show what\u2019s coming from the lakes versus what\u2019s being added by the city\u2019s wells.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is baseline upstream of the first well,\u201d Cuellar said. \u201cIt\u2019s 858 milligrams per liter TDS and 0.7 salinity. That\u2019s what we get on a daily average.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Cuellar said the numbers shoot up fast once the city\u2019s salty well water starts mixing in. Some readings jumped from around 800 to more than 3,500 in a matter of miles.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe impact is far greater in that short zone where the blending hasn\u2019t occurred yet,\u201d Cuellar said. \u201cThe river\u2019s current is slow, so that concentrated water stretches for miles before it finally dilutes down.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cuellar shared real-time readings that showed salt levels climbing as the city\u2019s well discharge entered the river flow.<\/p>\n
City Manager Peter Zanoni says the city\u2019s monitoring tells a different story…one that meets all state environmental requirements.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are allowed by the state to introduce more saltier water into the river,\u201d Zanoni said. \u201cWe monitor it that\u2019s part of our requirement from TCEQ and in the last eight months we have had no issues with water quality.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the city maintains everything is within state limits, residents living along the river believe they\u2019re watching the early signs of a bigger problem…one that could affect the Nueces River for years to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas \u2014 There\u2019s a growing fight brewing along the Nueces River and it\u2019s all over salt.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":["post-39593","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\/39593","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=39593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}