EPA may try to block Texas seawater desalination plant in Corpus Christi

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Texas regulators issued an environmental allow Thursday for the Port of Corpus Christi to construct what may turn into the state’s first seawater desalination plant — however the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency may refuse to settle for it.

The state allow for a desalination plant on Harbor Island represents the end result of years of enterprise technique, political maneuvering and lawyering effort on behalf of the port, which needs to construct a large-scale facility to convert seawater from the Gulf of Mexico into freshwater. The marine desalination plant is expected to cost at the least half a billion {dollars} to assemble; an estimate offered to the Texas Water Development Board places the associated fee at more than $800 million.

Environmental teams have fought the undertaking for 4 years on the grounds that wastewater from the plant may hurt delicate coastal ecosystems.

Now the port additionally can have to spar with the EPA, which may refuse to acknowledge the state allow on the grounds that it doesn’t adjust to the Clean Water Act. The federal company is worried that Texas’ allow may not be ample to shield aquatic life and water high quality, in accordance to letters obtained by The Texas Tribune, and that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality didn’t ship the allow to the EPA for federal overview.

The dispute facilities on what kind of allow is required: The EPA believes the desalination plant wants a “major” environmental allow — which requires EPA overview — whereas TCEQ says the power must be thought of a minor undertaking, which doesn’t require federal overview.

“If the TCEQ issues [the permit] without responding to the EPA … the EPA’s position will be that it is not a validly issued [permit],” Earthea Nance, regional administrator for the EPA’s Dallas-based Region 6, wrote in a Sept. 2 letter to TCEQ Commissioner Jon Niermann. Some consultants speculated that the EPA may sue the TCEQ to decide whether or not Texas is legally obligated to seek the advice of the EPA on such seawater desalination permits.

TCEQ commissioners on Thursday appeared to dismiss the EPA’s considerations. Commissioner Bobby Janecka stated he thought of the federal company’s objections however known as them “outside our window of decision” on whether or not to challenge the allow.

The Harbor Island plant is considered one of 5 marine desalination amenities proposed for Corpus Christi Bay — all racing to be the primary constructed in Texas. Two are proposed by the Port of Corpus Christi and two by the city of Corpus Christi. (The port and the town have soured on one another as partners on desalination.) The fifth plant was proposed by a now bankrupt plastics firm, which has since been taken over by Corpus Christi Polymers.

Water demand in the Corpus Christi area’s water planning space — pushed by a rising inhabitants and a growth in manufacturing and petrochemical amenities that want water to cool their crops — is anticipated to outstrip provide by greater than 31,000 acre-feet, or about 10 billion gallons, by the tip of the last decade if new water sources should not secured, in accordance to the state’s water plan.

The water planning space — made up of 11 counties in South Texas’ Nueces River Basin alongside the coast — projects that 70% of its new water assets can have to come from desalination crops by 2030.

“The potential for water independence from these kinds of facilities is very big,” stated Manish Kumar, an affiliate professor of environmental and chemical engineering on the University of Texas at Austin, who has labored on and suggested desalination initiatives. “The significance is huge, because we have the coastline, we have energy and in many places, we have a need for high-quality water.”

While Texas already has greater than 50 crops that desalinate brackish groundwater into freshwater, in accordance to a state database, seawater desalination is far more technically tough, power intensive and costly to obtain on a big scale as a result of ocean water is way saltier than brackish groundwater.

The seawater crops additionally give much less bang for buck: Marine desalination crops are in a position to convert round 40% to 50% of seawater into freshwater, whereas groundwater desalination crops convert nearer to 80%, Kumar stated. The remaining water — made saltier by eradicating a lot of the now recent water — is discharged as waste.

The port’s proposed plant for Harbor Island would produce up to 50 million gallons of potable water per day. The city of Corpus Christi currently uses about 72 million gallons per day. The plant would discharge up to 96 million gallons per day of wastewater into the Corpus Christi Ship Channel between Harbor Island and Port Aransas, in accordance to the port’s allow utility.

Errol Summerlin, co-founder of the Coastal Alliance to Protect the Environment, an environmental group that opposes the plant, stated that now that Texas has permitted the allow, he hopes the EPA “will come in and essentially assert their authority, and not recognize [the permit].” He stated the TCEQ Commissioners issued the allow “without taking into consideration the EPA’s objections, most importantly, that the entire process was flawed.”

EPA dispute 

The EPA started to protest the plan final 12 months, claiming that Texas had failed to permit the federal company to overview the plan to dump the salty wastewater into the channel, which is related to Corpus Christi Bay.

The EPA and Texas are frequently at odds about air quality — a politically contentious challenge due to the state’s reluctance to address local weather change-causing greenhouse gases. But Matthew Dobbins, an environmental litigation legal professional and associate at Vinson & Elkins, stated he was stunned to see the EPA threaten such an motion on a water matter.

“It’s interesting that the EPA said they’re willing to bring the hammer down and declare any permit issued here invalid,” Dobbins stated. “It was EPA taking a position that they have historically only [taken] in the air permitting context.”

He stated below President Joe Biden, the EPA is “taking a much closer look at permitting decisions than they may have in the past.”

Federal regulators had been so involved with TCEQ’s overview of the allow utility that final September, the EPA revoked Texas’ authority to independently overview desalination wastewater permits with out the EPA’s enter.

Two weeks in the past, TCEQ commissioners delayed a choice on the allow to permit the company extra time to weigh the EPA’s place. Both commissioners and workers characterised the EPA’s considerations as a last-minute intervention in a allowing course of that has lasted 4 years.

Kathy Humphreys, an legal professional at TCEQ, stated the EPA’s objection was “untimely,” and TCEQ Commissioner Emily Lindley stated the EPA appeared to have “jumped in very late in the process.”

Douglas Allison, a Corpus Christi-based legal professional representing the port, indicated throughout a TCEQ assembly earlier this month that the port would search to resolve the problems with the EPA immediately.

“[We] will see if there’s a way to thread this needle where ultimately, the permit is issued in good standing with TCEQ and EPA,” Allison stated at a TCEQ assembly earlier this month. “We believe we have to go forward.”

Environmental considerations

Craig Bennett, an legal professional representing the Port Aransas Conservancy, which opposes the plant, stated he’s involved that the TCEQ has set a foul precedent for allowing marine desalination crops.

The port has been unable to present the precise location for the discharge in the channel, he stated. An environmental advisor for the port stated throughout an administrative courtroom continuing that the precise location for the wastewater discharge couldn’t be decided till after building begins; the port’s allow utility offers an approximate location about 300 ft from Harbor Island’s south shore.

Bennett says the precise location is a very powerful issue to decide any potential environmental harm. Discharging wastewater into the channel — a delicate ecosystem depending on a sure mixture of freshwater and saltwater — may create an imbalance, Bennett stated. Excessive salinity can disrupt ecosystems by killing aquatic crops and animals, in addition to lowering vitamins in the water, which impacts the productiveness of crops.

“We are not opposed to desalination,” stated Bennett, who can also be a associate at Jackson Walker regulation agency in Austin. “There’s no reason they can’t run the discharge out into the gulf.”

The port argued in its allow utility that any salinity modifications in the bay from the discharge in the channel shall be insignificant in contrast with historic variations. An EPA analysis of salinity in the bay, nevertheless, recommends that salinity must be beneath a few of these historic variations to cut back stress on crops, animals and marine life.

Kumar, the UT Austin engineering professor, stated the most suitable choice would doubtless be to discharge the wastewater into the Gulf of Mexico, the place it might dissipate extra shortly in a bigger physique of water. But, he stated, when there are not any different options for freshwater and the environmental points are correctly mitigated, seawater desalination is useful.

“We live in such a challenging time with water scarcity,” Kumar stated. “You have to balance the risks properly so that you don’t create a problem, but the technology works, and it’s high quality water that you get out of it. If you need to have a consistent water supply, [marine desalination] is good.”

Disclosure: Jackson Walker and the University of Texas at Austin have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded in half by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no function in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a whole list of them here.

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