City manager unveils no-cost plan to revive Inner Harbor desalination; mayor says she called for action<\/a><\/p>\nCity Manager Peter Zanoni told 3NEWS the study will be conducted independently for the city, with help from scientists at the Harte Research Institute at Texas A&M University\u2013Corpus Christi. The goal is to monitor wildlife and assess possible risks as desalination plans move forward.<\/p>\n
Environmental advocates say they\u2019re concerned about how concentrated saltwater discharge, or brine, could affect nearby ecosystems. Jake Hernandez with the Texas Campaign for the Environment said one earlier proposal raised serious red flags.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the Inner Harbor desalination plant, the brine was planned to go right back out into the ship channel, which would create dead zones in the water, where the water would become over concentrated with salt,\u201d Hernandez said. \u201cThat could lead to a loss in plant and animal life, red tide and just generally degrading the bay in a way that we should not be tampering with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr. Edward Buskey with the University of Texas Marine Science Institute said the risks include triggering harmful algal blooms known as red tide.<\/p>\n
\u201cRed tide is a harmful algal bloom,\u201d Buskey said. \u201cThey\u2019re plants \u2014 they create toxins. It\u2019s something we\u2019ve had issues with in the past. They typically don\u2019t start in the Inner Harbor but can move into the bays from the Gulf of Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even the less controversial Harbor Island desalination proposal, which would send brine discharge into the Gulf instead of the bay, has drawn scrutiny. Buskey said it could still disrupt species that rely on the area\u2019s delicate balance of fresh and salt water.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problem is right at Harbor Island there are these estuary-dependent species \u2014 larval fish and shrimp and crabs \u2014 that could be impacted by that,\u201d Buskey said. \u201cThe adults go out to the Gulf of Mexico, they feed for a while and have to go back in. Part of how they pick the location is the salinity level, so it\u2019s possible to mess up all of that recruitment if you\u2019re releasing brine into Harbor Island.\u201d<\/p>\n
The city says no final decisions have been made on any desalination project and that ongoing collaboration with scientists and environmental groups will guide its next steps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Corpus Christi teams with the Harte Research Institute to study desalination\u2019s effects on marine life as experts warn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-48499","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\/48499","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=48499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}