desalination
stop desalination pollution
Corpus Christi City Council is seeking permits to build two baywater desalination plants in Corpus Christi Bay that would heavily impact the health of the bay, wildlife and the economy in order to provide water for proposed polluting plants that corporations want to build in northern Corpus Christi and San Patricio County.
Desal is a bad idea. Desal is expensive and would increase already high, monthly water bills. Both the intake of baywater and the discharge of highly concentrated brine with chemicals would kill sea life dependent on a mix of fresh and bay water. Desal would greatly harm the commercial and recreational fishing, and tourism economy.
More than 4,200 Corpus Christi voters signed a petition in favor of letting the voters have a say on whether or not the city pursues funding for desalination projects that will cost $1.3 billion dollars and would increase our utility bills.
You can send a message to local officials asking them to put residents first and stop pursuing costly desal for industry while asking us to pay for it!
oil export
oil export pollution
From 1975 until 2015, the U.S. banned exports of crude oil in the interests of U.S. energy independence. In 2015, that ban was lifted under pressure from fossil fuel companies that wanted to profit even more from fracking.
Now big corporations are rushing proposals to build almost a dozen oil and gas export facilities along the Texas and Louisiana Gulf Coast. If these facilities were built and the exported fossil fuels burned, these terminals would worsen climate change chaos around the world. Spills, water and air pollution and potential explosions would put at risk people’s lives and the bays, beaches, and Gulf. Fish, dolphins, sea turtles, sea grasses and other sea life make the Gulf special and full of life. Export terminals and the associated oil and gas pipelines threaten our communities and the environment.
You can help stop this attack on the Gulf. Raise your voice to oppose new and expanding oil export facilities!
Bluewater Terminal LLC (a partnership of Phillips 66 and scandal-ridden Trafigura) wants to build a massive oil export terminal for very large crude carriers off beautiful San Jose Island near Port Aransas, Texas. These giant carriers would take crude oil from Texas and Oklahoma to burn in other countries. There are many problems with this idea. For one thing, Bluewater is asking the US Environmental Protection Agency to allow them to emit almost 20,000 tons per year of air pollutants including dangerous toxic emissions like benzene without pollution controls.
These toxic pollutants are harmful to human health, wildlife, and the sensitive wetlands ecosystems around Port Aransas and Corpus Christi Bay. Many people live in the region and others travel from all over the nation to recreate there. If allowed, both Bluewater and the corporations that buy and burn the oil overseas would pump more global warming pollution into the air adding to climate disasters worldwide.
Stop Bluewater Export
Ask EPA to Stop Bluewater and prevent pollution in Texas’ Coastal Bend.
Information from Ingleside on the Bay Coastal Watch, https://www.iobcwa.org
Located adjacent to Ingleside on the Bay, MODA Midstream purchased the former Ingleside Navy Base in 2018 and now accounts for 25% of U.S. oil exports. The company has requested an amendment to a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality air pollution permit AND requested a US Army Corps of Engineers permit to build a new dock even closer to IOB for more and larger ships to load oil for export – destroying 10 acres of seagrass/wetlands and a known Karankawan historical site in the process.
Problem #1: Loss of Habitat, Shoreline Protection, Safety, and Sanity
It will be quite disruptive to the neighboring community of Ingleside on the Bay when MODA starts digging and dredging to construct this new dock. And then they will have to keep it dredged. They will also be permanently removing what has been fertile seagrasses for flounder and wetlands for seabirds on the Central Migratory Flyway, while leaving the Brass Turtle end of IOB exposed to even more coastal flooding, storm surge, erosion, and relative sea level rise impacts. And let’s not forget about the increased possibility of ship collisions, oil spills, and increased fumes and air pollution from generators used while even more ships dock at MODA to load up with oil.
Problem #2: Insufficient Mitigation
To make up for the destruction, MODA is offering to put 70 acres of live oak forest in a permanent easement along the fence line with IOB. The problem is, this will not make up for the loss of coastal habitat for fish and sea birds. They are also proposing to construct a 2000′ breakwater and plant 20 acres of new seagrass – at Port-owned property at Sunset Lake up by Portland! How exactly does that compensate IOB for our community’s fish and wildlife habitat loss and increased air, noise, and light pollution?
Problem #3: Destruction of Karankawan Site
McGloin’s Bluff is a known heritage site of the Karankawa Tribe, who were the first peoples in the region. The area proposed for the additional MODA dock includes further destruction of a known Karankawan archeological site that was eligible for placement on the National Register of Historical Places as described in pp. 8-15 of Current Archeology of Texas. Yet the Indigenous People of the Coastal Bend have not been consulted regarding industrial development taking place here and all around the Coastal Bend.
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