Corpus Christi sold its water to Exxon and is losing its big bet on desalination

Five years ago, when ExxonMobil came calling, city officials eagerly signed over a large portion of their water supply so the oil giant could build a $10 billion plant.

They did the same thing for Steel Dynamics a year later.

The mid-sized city on the South Texas coast had just completed its 50-year water plan 13 years ahead of time. The planners believed they had a solution.

To meet industrial water demands that were scheduled to come online, the state's first plant needed to be running by early 2023. It was never done in the city.

That hasn't stopped the city and its port authority from pursuing broader plans to build out a next-generation industrial sector around the bay and make it a rival to Houston.

As efforts to cut carbon emissions fall behind the timetables established in decades of global climate accords, Corpus Christi is planning a massive expansion of its hydrocarbon sector.

The freshwater is not present. Over the last five years, city officials have made commitments. Exxon's plastic plant started operations this year and will consume 25 million gallons of water per day even as the region's water plan predicts demand will exceed supplies in this decade.

Water use restrictions were put in place this summer due to the hot and dry weather. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and the US Environmental Protection Agency had questions about the consequences of dumping hundreds of millions of gallons of salty brine into the bay.

I want to get right in front of their faces and say, 'Hey people!' Are you aware that we need this permit? In July, Guajardo told the city council that they provide water for half a million people. It's of urgent importance. We need this permit.

The pursuit of desalinated water has become more desperate. Two plants have been proposed for the City of Corpus Christi, two for the Port of Corpus Christi and one for a private company.

The first wastewater discharge permit for a plant proposed by the port was issued last month, despite a challenge from the EPA.

Regulators and scientists worry that each plant's discharge of tens of millions of gallons of hyper-salty wastewater per day could disrupt major reproductive cycles for a host of aquatic species.

All together, environmentalists say, the five plants' discharge, along with the water pollution and ocean freighter traffic from the industrial boom they would unleash, may constitute a near-fatal blow for life in the bay.