The Inner Harbor desalination plant was proposed to produce a seawater-drinkable supply for Corpus Christi, especially to serve growing industrial demand.
Petrochemical companies and other industries in the coastal area need a lot of water and were already using the lion’s share of the municipal water supply.
The city of Corpus Christi is in a water crisis. It’s in stage three water restriction right now.
Desalination was being floated as the best solution. But it's expensive.
The project had ballooned from earlier estimates of $750 million to about $1.2 billion with residential users expected to pay for it with a 20 percent water rate increase.
Recently at a very long, emotionally charged city council meeting, many residents and environmental advocates spoke against the project. Major concerns included the high cost, fiscal risk, environmental damage—especially discharge of super-salty brine into the bay—and the unequal benefits.
But it was the cost concerns that eventually killed the project.
There was pressure from state officials pushing for desalination seeing this technology as a long-term partial solution to growing water needs for the state. For example, Governor Greg Abbott’s office had supported the project and provided some funding. But council members who opposed it said that despite the political pressure, the financial and broader benefit risks were too large.
Scrapping the Inner Harbor project is being seen as a major victory for the Corpus Christi community organizers who maintained pressure throughout the decade-long planning process.
They succeeded by mobilizing public testimony, framing the environmental stakes, and focusing on transparency and fiscal accountability.
Their strategy included showing how costs had escalated, how jobs or other claimed benefits were unclear, and insisting on alternatives.
The large public engagement shifted the political balance, making it politically costly for officials to support a plan seen as risky and burdensome.
Beatriz Alvarado and Jake Hernandez are lead organizers for the Texas Campaign for the Environment—Water for People Not Polluters operation.
Measles vaccine
On Thursday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory panel on vaccines voted to weaken recommendations for a measles vaccine that includes protection against the varicella virus, or the chickenpox.
They are saying the vaccine, called MMRV, shouldn’t be recommended for children under age 4 because of a small risk for seizures in that age group.
The seizures can be prompted by fevers associated with viruses. Doctors say that while they are scary for parents to witness, they are generally harmless.
It’s unknown if this recommendation will result in a policy change at the CDC but supporters of vaccines are alarmed.
Terri Burke says that would have had tragic consequences for Texans, given the fact the state just endured the worst outbreak of measles in 30 years.
Burke is the Executive Director of The Immunization Partnership.
