Groups vow to fight TCEQ decision on desalination permit

Austin, Texas – Commissioners of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) today voted to deny a request made last year by the Hillcrest Residents Association (HRA) and Texas Campaign for the Environment (TCE) for a contested case hearing to challenge a TCEQ wastewater discharge permit for the City of Corpus Christi’s proposed Inner Harbor desalination plant.

HRA sought a contested case hearing based on TCEQ’s failure to address concerns the neighborhood group and others have raised since 2024 regarding the degradation of water quality in the Corpus Christi Bay expected to result from the desalination plant’s wastewater and the City’s refusal to do necessary modeling to reliably predict the full extent of negative impacts from of facility’s effluent.

A range of studies and expert analyses have indicated that the City’s daily discharge of tens of millions of gallons of briny desalination wastewater directly into the slow-moving Inner Harbor ship channel and then into the shallow, confined Corpus Christi Bay could be ecologically devastating and cause “dead zones,” harming the region’s important fishing and tourism industries.

In a report on similar briny discharges into the Inner Harbor, Dr. Kristin Nielsen, an aquatic toxicologist at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, has warned that desalination effluent could settle on the bay floor and upend the delicate salinity balance required for many species' survival. Dr. Paul Montagna, a marine ecologist at Texas A&M Corpus Christi’s Harte Research Institute, has also criticized the plan, saying, “I don’t see how you can add brine to a salty system and not increase the salinity. I don’t get it.” 

The City’s proposed $757 million facility would be located within the Hillcrest neighborhood, blocks from HRA members’ homes, churches, and historic parks and close to their favorite fishing spots. Yet, the TCEQ Commissioners determined HRA members were not “affected persons” for this permit and thus were not entitled to a hearing.

“We’re deeply disappointed and confused by this decision,” said Monna Lytle of the Hillcrest Residents Association. “The Commissioners are saying that even though this facility would be in our neighborhood and impact us directly, we don’t have the right to question it. If anyone thinks we’re going to accept this injustice and let the City kill both our neighborhood and our Bay with this one facility, they need to think again.”

“This decision by the TCEQ Commissioners was incorrect and inconsistent with their own standards,” added attorney Erin Gaines with Earthjustice, representing HRA. “The Commissioners have previously granted contested case hearings based on impacts from wastewater discharge to where people enjoy fishing from facilities much smaller than this one. At this point we’ll explore all of the options for ensuring that the impacted residents of Hillcrest are heard.”

“The Corpus Christi Bay would become the Corpus Christi Dead Sea from the increased salinity if this desalination plant is ever built, but we will continue to fight it,” said Lamont Taylor of Texas Campaign for the Environment. “Our cause speeds on.”