CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Residents in the Robstown and Calallen communities are not happy about a proposed $2.2 billion ammonia plant being built in their backyard.
New Jersey based Avina Clean Hydrogen Inc. is looking to build the facility along FM 1889.
Local resident Suzanne Gallagher spotted a couple of signs along FM 1889 between Robstown and Calallen. When she got out to look and she saw it was a notice of an air quality permit application. Gallagher said she called the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and found out about the proposed ammonia plant.
"We don't want it and we don't want it to go to anybody else either," Gallagher said. "We want it to go somewhere that isn't in the middle of where a lot of people live and work."
George Prcha is a vegetable farmer who lives just down the way from the proposed plant site. He is known in the community for having his vegetable stand in front of his house from March to July. He isn't happy that an ammonia plant may be built in his neighborhood.
"From what I understand it's kin to a regular refinery," Prcha said.
Avina Clean Hydrogen Inc. bills the plant as the Nueces Green Ammonia facility. Karen White said the company promises to cut CO2 emissions and be powered by wind and solar facilities, making it the first of its kind in the US.
"There will be ammonia produced on the site," White said. "But the process by which you generate it is not steam methane reformation it's not a natural gas driven process. It's a water and power driven process."
Residents want it built in an industrial area near the Port. City councilman Mike Pusley agrees.
"I'm concerned about the location this may not be the best place for a plant of this nature," Pusley said.
Avina Clean Hydrogen says there will be about 500 construction jobs created and up to 100 high-paying jobs at the facility once it opens.
It could be years before it's built as there's expected to be a lengthy permitting process, which residents say they will fight all the way.
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