The Corpus Christi City Council voted 5-4 Tuesday against allowing the city to apply for up to $120 million in federal funding for the Inner Harbor desalination project — the latest in a series of failed votes on the roughly $1 billion proposal.
The grant was a part of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s WaterSMART Desalination Grant Program.
Council members Roland Barrera, Mark Scott, and Everett Roy brought the motion forward. It would have authorized Corpus Christi to seek up to $120 million in federal grant funding for the project.
Opponents of the motion argued the city would likely receive only a fraction of that amount.
Council member Eric Cantu said the full figure was not guaranteed.
"$120 million — that's not the case, we don't even know what we're going to get."
Council member Carolyn Vaughn echoed that concern, taking issue with how the funding figure had been characterized publicly.
"The Mayor gets on Facebook and she does this and if we don't do this we're going to turn down $120 million — that's not the case. No one is going to get $120 million. There's $120 million to go around, they're going to pick 10 groups to get it," Vaughn said.
Mayor Paulette Guajardo, who traveled to Washington, D.C. to pursue the federal funding, argued that seeking grant money before construction is standard practice for large infrastructure projects.
"It is standard practice to go after grant funding before it's being constructed. This is the way large infrastructure projects work," she said.
The five council members who voted against the motion said there is still not enough information to move forward on the project. Council member Kaylynn Paxson questioned how the council could support an application without firm details in hand.
"How are we going to say yes to applying for something that we don't have firm information for?"
The vote follows a failed vote on September 3, 2025, and a delayed vote on June 3. Barrera said the outcome Tuesday came as no surprise.
"I mean I already knew where this was gonna go anyway because it's been that way for the last 18 months."
One piece of information the council is seeking is additional study on how the Inner Harbor facility could affect marine life in the bay. City Manager Peter Zanoni said the city plans to give scientists who opposed the far field study an opportunity to review its findings.
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