CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Port of Corpus Christi’s efforts to secure a discharge permit for a desalination plant has hit a stumbling block. Commissioners with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have asked for more information on the Port’s plans.
Harbor Island sits directly across from Port Aransas along the ship channel. The Port Of Corpus Christi has been trying to get a discharge permit approved through the state to build a desalination plant here sometime in the future.
On Wednesday, TCEQ Commissioners sent the Port’s application back to the Port for it to do more scientific work.
"The TCEQ staff and attorneys reviewed that ruling along with the Port Of Corpus Christi and we both agreed that if they remanded the application back to the Port for us to do some additional work, such as some additional modeling, which we believe will actually be more favorable for in support of the location of the discharge," CEO Sean Strawbridge with the Port Of Corpus Christi said.
Errol Summerlin is with the Coastal Alliance To Protect Our Environment. He says that the Port’s plan to discharge all of that brine water from the desal plant would harm the ecosystem and kill off the fish.
"It’s the larva from shrimp, crab and a number of other species that travel back in through that same ship channel," Summerlin said.
Summerlin believes that the safest place to discharge the brine would be directly into the ocean, not into this channel.
"So it’s the only inlet within 150 miles on either side of this channel where the larval fish flow into the estuary," Summerlin said.
Strawbridge said the Port is looking to find scientists and researchers who have already studied the impacts of brine discharge in real world situations. He feels that opposition to the idea has been based on analysis and assumptions.
"That’s why we’re recruiting some additional academic resources that have that experience that can have that peer review and certainly help us in determining is this the best location or does it need to move to a different location that would have lower impacts potentially," Strawbridge said.
He also believes that this issue will be resolved by the end of the year while Summerlin feels that it may be next spring before a final decision is made on whether or not that discharge permit is approved.
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