CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — The Corpus Christi City Council voted 8-1 to move forward with a nearly $175 million brackish water desalination plant.
On Tuesday, Feb. 17, city leaders approved a contract with FCC Aqualia USA Corp. of Katy, Texas, for the design and operation of a containerized brackish water desalination plant at the O.N. Stevens Water Treatment Plant.
The $175 project includes $43.5 million for the containerized brackish water treatment plant, up to $11.5 million for the ancillary improvements at ONSWTP, and up to $120 million for the emergency construction of water pipelines, storage tanks, effluent discharge facilitator, and pump station infrastructure from the Western Well Field.
City Council also unanimously approved more than $230 million to advance the Evangeline Groundwater Project — including nearly $38 million to purchase groundwater rights at Li Ranch and contracts with Pape-Dawson Engineers and Garney Companies for construction and oversight. The project will add 22 new wells and roughly 35 miles of pipeline to bring new groundwater online for the city.
This comes as city officials now warn the timeline for a Level One water emergency could accelerate — with reservoirs showing no signs of recovery and the combined capacity of Choke Canyon and Lake Corpus Christi falling to just 9.5%.
KRIS 6 News sat down with City Manager Peter Zanoni earlier this week about the efforts to bring more sources of water to the Coastal Bend.
"This is a good example of bringing everything that we possibly can forward to mitigate going into curtailment this November," said Zanoni. "We're doing everything humanly possible bringing on every project possible to city council. To not do that would be, we wouldn't be doing our job if we didn't do that."
It's not just Lake Corpus Christi and the Choke Canyon Reservoir that are losing water.
Zanoni says the National Weather Service has warned the city that if current drought conditions continue there is a likelihood that the Nueces River will go dry. Conditions are also grim in Lake Texana. That reservoir is also dropping and Zanoni says we could be curtailed from Lake Texana by around mid-April.
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