$1B desal plant secures land on South Padre Island

Developers behind a $1 billion seawater desalination plant on South Padre Island are under contract for the land to build it along the far north end of State Highway 100, the company announced on Thursday. 

The proposed plant — which would produce up to 100 million gallons per day — would sit on a 117-acre site just south of the proposed second causeway between South Padre Island and Holly Beach in Cameron County’s mainland. 

The goal is to build a pipeline attached to the new bridge, which would then be routed across the Valley with a grid. The excess brine and salt from the plant would be released back into the ocean. 

The company behind the project is Delaware-incorporated RGV-Desal LLC, a partnership between Houston-based U.S. Desalination and IDE Technologies, an Israeli water desalination and water treatment business. 

“Desal is the only drought-proof water source,” said Doug Allison, a Corpus Christi attorney who is a partner with RGV Desal. 

The company is also behind a desalination plant in Corpus Christi, but that project has not yet been successful. 

Allison said one reason for that is due to it being a taxpayer-funded deal rather than a public-private partnership, which is privately funded. The second reason was its location on the Port of Corpus Christi’s channel rather than the ocean, which makes the intake and release of brine more difficult. 

He expects the environmental permitting process for the South Padre Island plant to take about 18 months. 

“We will have none of those [Corpus Christi] issues. Our intake and discharge are offshore,” Allison said about a 50-square-meter area in the ocean. “There is no adverse impact to the environment outside of a very small mixing zone [where] they’ll be very small increases in salinity.” 

RGV Desal has the support of a coalition of elected officials who are seeking a regional approach to water security, including State Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, who serves on the Joint Committee on State Water Implementation Fund for Texas Advisory Committee. 

Hinojosa also supported legislation that led to the Texas Water Fund, which has $1 billion in annual sales taxes earmarked for water infrastructure over the next 20 years. But officials say there’s already a $50 billion pipeline of water projects planned, and that’s not enough to meet demand. 

“We face a crisis, frankly. It was Corpus Christi which sort of rang the bell as a wake up call for all of us,” Hinojosa said. “As a state, we’re very much committed in providing the funding that is needed to help our community to be able to develop water resources but also replace aging infrastructure. We know other countries have been very successful in constructing desalination plants.” 

The seawater desalination plant could also support industrial customers such as the proposed oil refinery at the Port of Brownsville or water-intensive data centers. It would not likely be used in agriculture. The plant would employ about 50 workers with high-paying jobs. 

“We must engage with private investments, [public-private partnership] agreements. This is the way forward, it’s a great model,” said State Sen. Adam Hinojosa, who serves on the state’s Water, Agriculture, and Rural Affairs committee. “It does not deter from lower water rates in smaller cities that are able to require it, whether it’s through groundwater or if they still have surface water, but it’s an opportunity for those areas.” 

Desalinated seawater is the most expensive water option, estimated to cost between $3.60 to $5.80 per 1,000 gallons, according to the Texas Water Development Board. A brackish water desalination plant that relies on groundwater wells and reverse osmosis costs between $1.25 and $2.60 per 1,000 gallons of water. Water from the Rio Grande River is even cheaper than that — raw water for irrigation purposes is about 10 cents per 1,000 gallons. 

“When we have a long-term plan like this, sustainability is very very important,” Hidalgo County Judge Richard F. Cortez said. “We live in an area where many of our consumers are low income, so the price of things really impact a lot of our economy. I want you to be able to produce water at the cheapest level possible. Let us know how we can help you, help us.”

Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño Jr. said that the chances of securing more state funding for water infrastructure hinge on regional collaboration — just like how the Rio Grande Valley combined three transportation planning organizations into one. 

“The concern — fear — was the cost. Well, guess what? It hasn’t gotten any cheaper in the last 20 years,” Treviño said. “And it’s not going to get any cheaper if we continue to delay addressing these options.” 

Beyond that, the Valley has missed out on some economic development projects because of its lack of infrastructure, he said. 

“Many of the projects, from an economic development standpoint, that we’re looking at in Cameron and at the Port [of Brownsville] are going to require the necessary vital resource of water,” Treviño said. “The Valley as a whole has lost out on numerous opportunities because the first question asked is, ‘Do you have enough water?’”