City officials are optimistic that they will soon have an answer on whether a state agency will approve a $535 million low-interest loan to continue pursuit of the proposed Inner Harbor desalination plant.
In an email to the Caller-Times, Corpus Christi Water’s water resource manager Esteban Ramos wrote that the application to the Texas Water Development Board “is progressing well through the process.”
“City staff anticipate that the application will be taken in front of the Texas Water Development Board commissioners in July for approval,” he added in his message. “The City is excited to continue its hard work with the Texas Water Development Board and bring a drought proof, environmentally sustainable and ecologically affordable project to the Coastal Bend.”
The next board meeting is scheduled for July 23, according to the agency’s site, although an agenda is not yet available.
Agendas are posted one week before the meetings, wrote spokeswoman Emma Rogers in an email to the Caller-Times.
The low-interest loan is being requested under the board’s State Water Implementation Fund for Texas.
City officials were given the blessing of the City Council to submit the application in January.
The loan is being sought to help cover a shortfall between a construction estimate in 2019 of about $220 million for a 20-million-gallons-per-day desalination plant and a more recent estimate of $757.5 million for a 30-million-gallons-per-day plant at its Inner Harbor site.
Increases in the new estimate have been attributed by the city’s staff to a higher-capacity plant and construction-related inflation.
Ancillary infrastructure required for its operation was also not accounted for in the initial estimate, officials have said.
The city previously accepted a low-interest loan totaling $222 million under the same state program.
Dispute over whether the plant is needed has been sharp.
Supporters have said an additional water source is needed to encourage continued growth of the region’s economy and population, asserting that items such as environmental factors have been sufficiently studied and that costs could be kept reasonable.
Opponents have questioned the likelihood of environmental impacts, criticized associated costs of the plant development and suggested the city would be better-served focusing on repairing existing infrastructure rather than desalination.
In late June, the City Council in a 6-3 vote approved spending $150 million of the earlier low-interest loan to put into motion a series of contracts, to include property acquisition and selection of a design-build company, agenda memos show.
A shortlist of firms in consideration for contract award was also established, according to documents.
In the 6-3 vote, Mayor Paulette Guajardo and City Councilmen Dan Suckley, Roland Barrera, Mike Pusley, Michael Hunter and Everett Roy supported moving forward with funding and selections for the project’s next steps.
City Councilman Gil Hernandez abstained, while City Council members Sylvia Campos and Jim Klein voted in opposition.
Klein and Campos have both raised concerns about permitting processes that have not yet concluded, environmental questions and a pending Civil Rights complaint lodged by residents of the nearby Hillcrest neighborhood, where the majority of residents have historically been Black and Hispanic.
““I think it would be financially wise if we waited until those issues are resolved before we decide to commit extra dollars to this,” Klein told the council in June.
Desalination advocates have expressed confidence that the remaining required permits will be approved and have generally denied any Civil Rights violations associated with the project’s location.
Several councilmembers who supported advancing the project described it as a historic move and integral to the future of Corpus Christi and its 500,000 regional water customers.
“It is the most important vote that any council will have made in the history of this city,” Guajardo told fellow councilmembers.
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