The old saw, “Everything is bigger in Texas,” may soon be coming true once again, as the Nueces River Authority has revealed plans for a deepwater desalination plant off Harbor Island near Corpus Christi that would immediately become the nation’s largest – and with planned expansions by 2070, larger than all but two of the world’s existing desalination plants.
Desalination today provides potable water to billions of people worldwide, with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Israel, and other Middle Eastern countries leading the way. The world’s largest, Ras at Khair in Saudi Arabia, has a capacity of 228 million Imperial gallons per day (MIGD).
A 2022 report stated that of the approximately 17,000 operational desalination facilities globally, only about 300 were in the U.S., led by 167 in Florida, 58 in California, and 52 in Texas. The Claude “Bud” Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant, the largest U.S. desalination plant and currently the world’s ninth largest, supplies up to 50 MIGD to the city of San Diego.
Seven of the next nine largest U.S. desalination plants are in Florida, but ranking fifth is the Kay Bailey Hutchison facility in El Paso, which opened in 2007. The El Paso facility, however, is also the world’s largest inland desalination plant, cleaning up to 27.5 million gallons per day (Mgpd) of brackish water for use at Fort Bliss and in El Paso.
Close behind is the H2Oaks facility in San Antonio, which opened in 2017 and currently produces up to 12 Mgpd, with plans to expand capacity to 30 Mgpd by 2040.
When Alice, Texas, decided to expand capacity for its own brackish-water desalination plant in 2022, it became the first brackish-water desalination plant in the state to employ a public-private partnership rather than rely on 100% financing from the State Water Implementation Fund for Texas (SWIFT).
Florida-based Seven Seas Water Group convinced Alice officials that by financing the desalination plant with private sector capital and completing the source wells and pipelines with state revolving fund financing, the city could lower its water supply costs while transferring the risks of construction and operations to Seven Seas. After 15 years, the city can assume ownership of the facility.
John Byrum, Executive Director of the Nueces River Authority, says the NRA intends to use that same route for construction and operation of its planned 100 Mgpd phase 1 desalination plant (twice the size of the Carlsbad plant), which could become operational within the next few years. The system design includes options to increase capacity to 450 Mgpd by 2070, depending on growth and water needs.
Byrum points to current drought conditions and to a 2015 NASA prediction that the American West is likely to experience severe “megadroughts” that may be more extreme and prolonged than even the droughts of the 1930s. Lake Corpus Christi and the Choke Canyon Reservoir, which service south central Texas, are currently at 17.9% of their combined capacity.
Bynum’s team has obtained water needs projections from every public and large private water user in a 14-county area in the Region L water planning area in search of water purchase commitments from the proposed desalination facility. The NRA is working with the Port of Corpus Christi, which has applied for permits from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the intake and water diversion structures for the planned facility.
The NRA is also negotiating a lease with the Port of Corpus Christi for the Harbor Island property, which is east of the city near the Port Aransas ferry dock.
Just as Alice relied on a public-private partnership, the NRA facility would be financed via a public-private partnership in which the Authority would construct and operate the conveyance system to distribute the water while a very experienced desalination company would build and operate the plant at least until the debt owed to the company was fully repaid.
Byrum says the waste material would be sent, with negligible environmental impact, into deep water in the Gulf of America, though it is possible that the brine could first be “mined” for valuable minerals. Another benefit from using desalinated water is that, as this “new water” is processed through wastewater treatment after use it adds to streamflow in south central Texas’ parched Frio and Nueces Rivers.
While the NRA facility is being designed to serve the area’s large industrial facilities as well as smaller communities in need of additional potable water, the City of Corpus Christi is awaiting final permits before moving forward with construction of its own 30 Mgpd desalination plant, to be built in the ship channel in the inner harbor. The city’s contractor, Texas-based Kiewit Infrastructure South Co., which has designed and built several desalination plants, anticipates it could complete construction by early 2028.
Texas is hardly done with desalination projects. The Southmost Regional Water Authority just announced plans to double the capacity of its Brownsville brackish water desalination plant from 10 Mgpd to 20 Mgpd at a cost of $213 million. Brownsville Mayor John Cowen is seeking funding from the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation for the project, which is needed to serve area industries and its growing population.
Earlier, the Laguna Madre Water District announced plans to build a 10 Mgpd reverse osmosis seawater desalination plant in Port Isabel using Gulf of America water from the Brownsville Ship Channel. LMWD general manager Carlos Galvan says district voters had approved a $15.6 million bond in 2011 to build the plant, which is being augmented by a $10 million SWIFT loan.
The SWIFT program, housed within the Texas Water Development Board, has committed nearly $11.5 billion to fund implementation of recommended water management strategy projects within the state’s water plan since 2017. This revolving loan fund is a huge part of the state’s long-term water security strategy as Texas continues to add people and industrial facilities.