How a tiny Texas river company plans to construct the biggest desalination plant within the nation

This text initially appeared on Inside Local weather Information, a nonprofit, non-partisan information group that covers local weather, power and the surroundings. Join their publication right here.

This story was produced in partnership with the Texas Newsroom, the state’s community of public radio stations. 

One thing moved John Byrum. He believed he may succeed the place others had not. 

The chief director of the Nueces River Authority (NRA) — a small, rural company primarily based 200 miles from the coast—determined to take up the banner, in 2024, of a desalination plant on Corpus Christi Bay. 

Plans to construct seawater desalination crops had floundered for years close to Corpus Christi, which supplies water to a significant advanced of chemical crops and refineries, and the probability of water shortages was rising.

“Texas wanted a sustainable provide of water in that space to guard the trade,” stated Byrum, a veteran water supervisor with silver hair and a captivating drawl. “This was the best way to do it.”

The Port of Corpus Christi by no means secured financing for the multi-billion-dollar mission, so Byrum would fund it one piece at a time. He took up assortment, not from the area’s giant industrial water customers like ExxonMobil, OxyChemical and Valero, however from small cities and rural utilities within the hinterlands of San Antonio, 150 miles from the coast, that might theoretically be related by pipeline to the desalination plant, in response to data obtained by Inside Local weather Information. 

The company collected $6.4 million from 18 cities, cities and utilities since March of final yr, data present, whereas it doled out lobbying and engineering contracts for the Harbor Island desalination mission close to Corpus Christi. 

Executives collected cash from as far-off as town of Kyle, south of Austin, the place NRA’s chief working officer on the time offered the Metropolis Council in October with plans to construct the large pipeline from the coast by 2032, and a chance to order a few of its water.

“We’re truly 90 p.c bought out now,” Travis Pruski, the official, informed the Metropolis Council. “You’ll purchase the final 10 p.c of the water.”

Nonetheless, data present, Kyle purchased the water, however Pruski didn’t cease promoting. The company continued to promote reservations for 5 months after Kyle paid its $500,000 deposit. Actually, the water was by no means bought out, data present.

Pruski resigned from the NRA in Might, after alleging that Byrum misrepresented monetary figures to Corpus Christi’s Metropolis Council and the company’s board members. Byrum denies that and continues his work to construct the desalination plant.

Pruski, a profession fundraising skilled and former mayor of the small city of Poth, declined to touch upon the specifics of his time with the NRA or the allegations in his resignation letter.

“I’m not likely wanting to speak about that proper now,” he stated. “I’ve sort of moved on with my life.” 

In Might, Byrum’s NRA introduced a partnership with Israeli desalination big IDE Applied sciences, which described the Harbor Island plant as the biggest seawater desalination mission within the Western Hemisphere.

First outlined in 2017 by the Port of Corpus Christi, plans for Harbor Island stalled amid feuding with town authorities and its competing desalination mission. 

Later, the little NRA confronted steep skepticism over its wherewithal to tackle such an unlimited endeavor. 

Now, the partnership with IDE, a world chief in seawater desalination, marks the strongest signal but that the landmark mission may turn into a actuality. It additionally means future Texans may pay a international firm for water.

IDE would personal and function the power, promoting water manufactured by means of high-tech and energy-intensive processes to the NRA by means of a public-private partnership.

“They want authority to promote water in Texas and we’re that authority,” Byrum stated in an interview. “We’re going to verify there’s some downward pricing strain.”

The plant design will come first, he stated, then the design of native pipelines to Corpus Christi and the area’s industrial advanced. After that they’ll design the 200-mile pipeline to the 15 different small cities and districts which have paid to order Harbor Island water. 

“It’ll occur,” he stated. 

Byrum acknowledged he’s confronted loads of doubt concerning the NRA’s skill to tug this off. Some skepticism comes from the NRA’s seemingly out-of-the-blue determination to tackle such a problem, and a few stems from its popularity as an authority that does river cleanups, not $6 billion improvement initiatives. 

When the Corpus Christi Metropolis Council voted to place a $2.7 million deposit on the NRA mission final yr, Mayor Paulette Guajardo opposed it. 

After Pruski’s resignation raised questions concerning the mission, Guajardo stated the NRA ought to refund Corpus Christi’s deposit.

“There have been severe considerations,” she wrote on Fb in April. “I didn’t see a transparent, logical plan, funding mechanism, or ample info.”

Not one of the cities that paid deposits have publicly alleged wrongdoing by the NRA, and an inside assessment by the NRA final month cleared the chief director of malfeasance.  

Corpus Christi metropolis supervisor Peter Zanoni supported paying the reservation price in October and described it as a raffle that town, critically quick on water, wanted to take. The deposit, he stated in an interview, was “seed cash to see if they’ll advance this mission.”

“There’s danger in that. We all know that,” he stated. “The cash is actually getting used to assist develop potential for a mission with an company that has no cash.” 

Seawater Desalination in Texas

Headquartered within the city of Uvalde, 80 miles west of San Antonio, the NRA doesn’t handle any reservoirs. The company’s largest belongings are a small wastewater remedy plant and land it owns. Its annual finances of some million {dollars} has primarily funded outreach and education schemes. 

When it comes to growing infrastructure, the NRA contributed to the development of the Choke Canyon reservoir, one in every of two western water provides town of Corpus Christi depends on. It additionally labored alongside the Port of Corpus Christi Authority and town of Corpus Christi to assemble the Mary Rhodes Pipeline, which carries water into town from Lake Texana 100 miles away.

The company’s small finances didn’t cease Byrum from sending a proposal to the Port of Corpus Christi Authority in 2024, providing to orchestrate the event of its multi-billion-dollar seawater desalination plant on Harbor Island.

The proposed facility would produce 100 million gallons of potable water per day, twice as a lot as the biggest desalination plant within the nation at the moment, in San Diego, and sufficient to produce some 400,000 Texas households.

The mission plans name for 2 gargantuan tunnels, 60 toes underground, working 1.8 and three.1 miles into the Gulf of Mexico to absorb seawater and discharge brine in monumental portions. 

These kinds of amenities are sophisticated to develop and costly to construct, stated Don Roach, former assistant common supervisor of the San Patricio Municipal Water District close to Corpus Christi, who beforehand labored on a seawater desalination plant in Saudi Arabia with the engineering agency Bechtel.

“I don’t assume it’ll ever occur,” he stated.

What got here as a shock to Roach was that the NRA’s board of administrators, appointed by the governor, would permit the company to tackle a mission of this scale. 

“You could be well-educated and good, however that want for energy—and I don’t know why you even contemplate that for those who’re with a state company—it simply overwhelms every little thing,” Roach stated. 

Although Roach has no religion on this mission, Corpus Christi has discovered itself able the place it’s going to must do a desalination plant, he stated.

So the NRA took on a lease for Harbor Island in 2024 whereas Byrum got down to collect funds. 

The NRA stated it collected $700,000 in water reservation charges and had paid roughly $930,000 in preconstruction prices for the Harbor Island plant as of Aug. 31, 2025. 

Native officers have raised considerations concerning the NRA’s financing strategies. However specialists in water infrastructure see nothing uncommon in amassing reservation charges. That’s how river authorities in Texas constructed the state’s reservoirs in earlier generations, stated Todd Votteler, a former govt supervisor of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority.

“There are frequent complaints from native water prospects about paying for the water earlier than they want it, however there wasn’t a lot of another,” he stated. “The shopper can be taking an enormous danger if they didn’t buy a portion of the availability upfront when it’s accessible.”

For essentially the most half, Texas river authorities stopped constructing main reservoirs 40 years in the past. None has ever constructed a seawater desalination plant. 

Votteler, editor-in-chief of the Texas Water Journal, puzzled how the NRA deliberate to move its water over tons of of miles to the purchasers who paid reservation charges. 

Kyle Frazier, a water lobbyist and govt director of the Texas Desalination Affiliation, informed a state Senate listening to in Might that the pipeline infrastructure required for large-scale distribution of desalinated seawater to outlying communities at the moment makes the water too costly to promote. 

“That sort of blows the monetary mannequin as a result of getting these merchandise to the individuals who want them is dear,” Frazier informed the Senate Committee on Water, Agriculture and Rural Affairs. “They simply haven’t gotten it to the purpose the place it’s financially viable.”

Clients might want to pay extra for water, stated Sen. Charles Perry, R-Lubbock, the committee chair, who has promoted his imaginative and prescient for an unlimited pipeline community linking big seawater desalination crops with inland cities of Texas.

“We have now run out of a budget water,” Perry stated. “We’re shifting in the direction of the desal mannequin for positive.” 

Texas has fallen behind on its water provide, Perry stated, and desalination is its finest likelihood to catch up. 

IDE, the Israeli desalination developer, introduced plans in April to construct the primary seawater desalination plant in Texas on the Port of Brownsville. 

“When you construct one, there’s gonna be seven others,” IDE Water Property CEO Lihy Teuerstein informed the Senate water committee. 

Weeks later, IDE introduced its second mission in Texas, at Harbor Island. 

The Harbor Island Plant

IDE opened its workplace in Texas in 2015, the identical yr state lawmakers created a regulatory framework for seawater desalination and directed the state’s energy authority to check its electrical calls for. 

In 2016, Gov. Greg Abbott toured an IDE facility in Israel, one of many largest desalination crops on this planet, in response to a press launch from Abbott’s workplace. 

“The governor expressed his intention to associate with Israeli expertise corporations resembling IDE to develop and deploy water options for Texas,” stated a 2016 press launch from IDE. 

When it was first proposed in 2017, the Harbor Island plant would have been the primary of its sort in Texas. The Port of Corpus Christi Authority filed a allow utility for the mission in March 2018.  

At the moment, town of Corpus Christi was additionally growing plans for its personal desalination plant. Leaders there envisioned a facility that wasn’t operated by a personal firm, like others around the globe, however by town itself—the primary municipally owned and operated seawater desalination plant. 

“I don’t assume the general public is knowing the importance,” stated then-Mayor Joe McComb when the Metropolis Council voted to advance the plans at a gathering in August 2019. “We’re setting this prepare on monitor. It’s only a fairly thrilling day for me.”

In January 2020 town requested a allow for a mission at its Internal Harbor, about 20 miles from the port’s Harbor Island web site. 

Regional water calls for couldn’t justify two giant crops, officers knew. Whichever mission reached completion first would seize a lot of the market. 

That’s why leaders in Corpus Christi protested vigorously in April 2022 once they realized that the port had quietly utilized for a half-billion-dollar state mortgage to finance its Harbor Island mission. A Metropolis Council decision demanded the port withdraw its mortgage utility and “finish any and all makes an attempt to turn into a water producer.”

“Town is the water distributor that can personal and function any desal plant,” Corpus Christi Metropolis Councilmember Mike Pusley stated at a Metropolis Council assembly that April when port commissioners got here for questioning. “I hope that message will get by means of.”

Port commissioner Rajan Ahuja stated the port was now not pursuing the mortgage. Solely a preliminary utility had ever been filed, he stated, and the port’s CEO, Sean Strawbridge, hadn’t notified him. 

“I discover that conduct utterly disingenuous,” stated Councilmember Roland Barrera, describing a historical past of frustrations with Strawbridge. 

“I agree with that. It doesn’t matter how good Sean is perhaps, all of us must play by the foundations,” Ahuja replied. “He’s heard an earful from us in the previous couple of weeks.”

In a press release to Inside Local weather Information, Strawbridge stated his mortgage utility was “a pre-application with no monetary dedication” submitted to verify the mission was eligible for state funds. As a result of it concerned no contractual obligations for the port, Strawbridge stated, he wasn’t required to inform the port commissioners. The chairman of the Port Fee, Charlie Zahn, accepted the submission, Strawbridge stated.

“The port retains rewarding the conduct of its govt workforce once they do these items that they know are going to perpetuate this disgruntlement between town and the port,” Pusley stated. “We are able to’t do that anymore.”

Strawbridge nonetheless pushed for the Harbor Island mission. Later that yr he took a contingent of state and native officers, together with the Senate water committee chairman, Perry, to Israel to go to an IDE facility and find out about its public-private partnership methodology of operation. 

The port provided to work in partnership with town, however the metropolis declined. 

In 2023, Strawbridge resigned. He based an organization referred to as US Desalination and this yr introduced a partnership with IDE to construct a seawater desalination plant in Texas, 150 miles south of Corpus Christi on the Port of Brownsville.

Resurrecting Harbor Island

Byrum spent most of his profession main municipal water utilities in cities of San Angelo, Victoria, San Antonio and Corpus Christi, the place he was working as assistant director of wastewater in 2019 when he took his current job with the NRA.

Port officers stated they had been stunned in 2024 when Byrum despatched a three-page letter to them proposing to take up the flag of the Harbor Island Undertaking. 

“Present water provides are a difficulty for industries,” the letter stated. 

So Byrum prompt a nine-step plan. Step one was for the NRA to signal a lease for Harbor Island.

“The Port of Corpus Christi is in receipt of an unsolicited supply,” a spokesperson informed KRIS 6 Information on the time. “The port will consider the supply as it could some other.”

And not using a lease settlement, the NRA board licensed Byrum in November 2024 to start negotiating a contract with the agency Black and Veatch to function “Advisor for Seawater Desalination Undertaking Growth.” In March 2025 the board accepted the contract for $990,000.

Three weeks later, on April 9, 2025, the NRA secured its first reservation price. The East Central Particular Utility District, a small, rural water provider outdoors San Antonio, 120 miles from Corpus Christi Bay, paid $196,000 to order 7 million gallons per day (MGD) of water from the Harbor Island plant.  

Later that month, the close by Inexperienced Valley SUD paid $147,000 to order about 5 MGD, and Springs Hill SUD signed over $98,000 to order 4 MGD in Might. Between June and July, the NRA collected one other $200,000 in deposits from seven different cities and utilities close to San Antonio. 

In July, the Port of Corpus Christi agreed to Byrum’s proposal, granting NRA a 50-year lease for Harbor Island. 

The 137-page lease units out a strict timeline for the NRA. It obliges the company to have a design engineer with a minimum of 10 years expertise of large-scale seawater desalination remedy amenities 10 months into the NRA’s improvement interval. By the fourteenth month, the NRA has to have contracted commitments for a minimum of 25 MGD of produced water. Two years into the event interval, the NRA ought to have its personal associate picked out for the mission. 

The NRA would pay the port $32,000 per 30 days, Byrum stated in August 2025 when he offered his mission to the Corpus Christi Metropolis Council, looking for a reservation price. 

Taking Up a Assortment

Byrum informed the Corpus Christi Metropolis Council that he deliberate to construct the Harbor Island plant and native pipeline system to start producing 100 MGD in 2029. He stated 38 MGD had already been reserved and one other 30 MGD was in negotiations. 

“It’s first come, first pay,” Byrum stated. “As soon as the capability is bought, it’s bought.”

Byrum charged $24.44 per acre-foot of water for localities to order the correct to buy water at a later date. However the NRA hadn’t but decided how a lot that water would price, Byrum stated.

“I’m simply fascinated that individuals are signing reservations with out figuring out the fee,” stated Councilmember Mark Scott, the president of an area title firm. 

“It’s moist and it’s good high quality,” Byrum replied. “They want water.” 

Most reservation charges had been paid by cities and utilities close to San Antonio, Byrum stated. The NRA deliberate to construct a pipeline there by 2032, he stated. 

“What’s the transmission estimate to maneuver water from Corpus to San Antonio?” Scott requested.

“Complete lotta cash,” Byrum stated. “Three billion bucks?”

“Extra,” Scott stated. 

He requested how the mission can be funded. Byrum stated it could search state funding. For now the NRA used reservation charges to rent Black and Veatch for preliminary providers, Byrum stated. 

“So it’s a must to e book sufficient cash in your reservation charges to rent them to go to the following step?” Scott requested.

“Sure,” Byrum replied.

One month later, in September 2025, the Corpus Christi Metropolis Council voted to cancel its personal $1.2 billion design contract for its 30 MGD Internal Harbor desalination mission. In October the council accepted a $2.7 million deposit to order 50 MGD from Harbor Island.

That was the biggest deposit the mission collected. The second largest deposit got here from the small metropolis of Kyle, south of Austin. One of many fastest-growing cities within the nation, Kyle struggled for years to maintain up with rising native water demand earlier than Pruski addressed town council. 

‘I’ve By no means Seen It This Method‘

In a slideshow presentation on Oct. 21 to the council, Pruski displayed a map of a 7-foot-wide pipeline working from Corpus Christi to San Antonio, then splitting right into a west fork and “an east one which’s going to come back up this route in the direction of you guys.”

“We haven’t designed it utterly,” Pruski stated. “You wish to get early in on this course of as we’re going by means of this pipeline design.”

The NRA believed it may construct the large pipeline in current state freeway right-of-way, Pruski stated, avoiding the painstaking and costly means of buying rights from each landowner over 200 miles. 

The pipeline would serve many communities of the area which have already paid deposits, Pruski stated.

That was the assembly when he informed Kyle officers that the mission was almost bought out: “Y’all are taking the final 10 p.c, so congratulations.”

Kyle purchased the water, however Pruski didn’t cease promoting. That month, he delivered the identical message in displays to different small cities close to Corpus Christi. 

Town supervisor of Portland exceeded his workplace’s spending restrict to pay an almost $70,000 deposit on Oct. 31. 

“It grew to become an emergency for us to go forward and reserve that price in order that another person didn’t soar in,” Metropolis Supervisor Randy Wright defined to the Metropolis Council. 

In close by Ingleside, Pruski additionally informed the Metropolis Council that it was reserving the final accessible water from Harbor Island. 

“All of the water has been spoken for,” Pruski stated.

After paying a deposit, Pruski defined, the following step can be to begin making take-or-pay contracts within the coming months. 

That appeared uncommon, stated David Pruitt, then an Ingleside councilman. He requested why the NRA didn’t simply construct the plant, then promote its product. 

“I’ve by no means seen it this manner,” Pruitt stated. “All these entities are paying you to place all this in, after which water time comes, we nonetheless bought to purchase some water?”

Pruski defined that the NRA couldn’t plan its pipeline system until it had dedicated prospects, so Ingleside signed a $110,000 contract on Nov. 4. 

At its Nov. 14 board assembly, the NRA licensed a slew of latest contracts.

That included contracts for “figuring out and establishing long-term funding relationships” with Hugo Berlanga, a lobbyist who additionally works for the Port of Corpus Christi and Hicks Pate Methods, a consulting agency based in 2024 by Abbott’s former chief of employees. 

The board licensed the creation of a nonprofit group “meant to strengthen the NRA’s capability to acquire exterior funding,” and it accepted an settlement with Clear Vitality Capital, a boutique finance agency in San Francisco, for assist deciding on a personal associate within the Harbor Island mission. 

The NRA additionally accepted an settlement with Houston-based Civitas Engineering Group to develop a request for proposals, rescinded a contract supply with Black and Veatch and licensed Byrum to conduct negotiations with 5 different engineering corporations. 

Regardless of claims that every one its water was reserved, the NRA continued to gather deposits into 2026. Actually the water was by no means absolutely reserved, data present. 

Town of Three Rivers agreed to pay greater than $82,000 to order 1.5 MGD in March. One week later, County Line Particular Utility District dedicated to pay the NRA greater than $270,000 to order 5 MGD. Crystal Clear Particular Utility District agreed to pay greater than $164,000 for 3 MGD in April. 

Pruski Resigns 

Whereas Pruski traveled to those cities throughout South and Central Texas slinging reservation charges for water from a distant desalination plant, he stated in a letter to the board of administrators in March that he was nervous concerning the numbers Byrum was utilizing. 

Pruski stated he had seen inconsistencies within the desalination plant’s finances, in addition to in how a lot cash Byrum was saying had truly been deposited from the reservation charges. 

Pruski alleged within the letter that Byrum informed the board at an August 2025 assembly that 36 MGD of capability had been bought and that the corresponding income was within the financial institution. Pruski stated that quantity wasn’t proper, solely 21 MGD had been dedicated and paid for at the moment.  

The board then used that misguided info to make monetary selections, Pruski wrote.

It occurred once more, Pruski alleged, in September and October, as Corpus Christi weighed whether or not to pay a $2.7 million reservation price. 

Pruski stated that these preliminary considerations had been dismissed with out clarification. He was additionally successfully shut out of additional monetary deliberations and wasn’t offered paperwork for a finances he was accountable for, Pruski wrote.  

Byrum later stated in an interview that the NRA wanted to verify it didn’t commit water capability twice. He additionally wished to make sure that water was going to be accessible a month or two after Corpus Christi reserved half of the desalination plant’s future capability. 

“It wasn’t an exaggeration,” Byrum stated. “That was warning on my half.”

Pruski despatched his letter to the board two weeks after Abbott threatened to take over Corpus Christi if it couldn’t get a deal with on its water disaster. 

In writing the letter, Pruski acknowledged that it may carry severe skilled legal responsibility. “I might moderately face penalties for talking the reality than stay silent,” he wrote. 

When the outcomes of an inside NRA investigation into Pruski’s allegations had been introduced at the latest board assembly in Might and located no wrongdoing by the chief director, Pruski resigned. 

“I can’t take part on this tradition any longer, when you have folks with good rules who’re sacrificed to sit down by, be quiet,” Pruski stated to the board. “I simply can now not be a part of this group anymore.” 

‘The place Are They Getting Their Cash?‘

Additionally in Might, McComb, the previous Corpus Christi mayor, despatched an 11-page letter to Byrum alleging the river authority not solely lacked the monetary sophistication to develop what can be the biggest desalination plant within the nation, but additionally the transparency legally required of a state company. 

McComb sought to have the NRA launch the listing of cities that had paid reservation charges to the company, clarify the way it deliberate to make use of the collected cash and share minutes from govt committee conferences through which selections about Harbor Island had been made. 

The authority’s complete program revenues in 2025 had been $4.2 million, $1.4 million greater than in 2024. Nonetheless, the NRA has repeatedly spent extra money than it earned all through the previous six years.

In its 2025 monetary assertion and impartial auditor’s report, the river authority additionally stated that building of the desalination plant is estimated to price roughly $6.4 million and might be financed by means of water reservation charges in addition to by means of bonds. Byrum has extensively stated the mission will price $6.4 billion—not million. 

For McComb, it’s a suspect slip-up, not a typo, as Byrum has persistently stated in public testimony that the mission would price billions of {dollars}. To McComb, it was odd that when the audit was returned to Byrum to assessment and approve, neither Byrum nor any of the NRA’s board members corrected the determine to billions. 

McComb spent 27 years as an elected official, each on the metropolis and county stage, working with monetary advisors and bond counsel. After wanting on the NRA’s monetary reviews, he stated he thinks no one of their proper thoughts can be prepared to spend money on a mission of this scale from a corporation that small, regardless of its partnership with Israel’s largest desalination firm.  

“If I had been anyone signing huge contracts with the Nueces River Authority, I’d be sending them an bill on the finish of on daily basis,” McComb stated in an interview with Inside Local weather Information. “The place are they getting their cash?”

Byrum responded in a press release, saying he’s “undecided the place McComb is coming from.”

“We’re at the moment in contract negotiations with IDE who has developed over 400 water remedy crops,” he stated. “I imagine their willingness to work with the NRA speaks to our skill to get the mission constructed.”  

The 18 cities and water provide corporations that paid reservation charges might be requested, on the acceptable time, Byrum wrote in a letter responding to McComb in June, to work out contracts to purchase the consuming water they every reserved, in addition to how the produced water might be delivered from the desalination plant. The NRA’s water agreements with cities will then be used to show to buyers that the company can have cash coming in, and can have the ability to repay the bonds it plans to concern.  

A lot of the municipalities and water provide companies which have paid a reservation price are 100 or 150 miles away. In consequence, McComb stated, the transportation charges might be astronomical. 

“It’s apparent to me they’re not keen on getting the water on the lowest worth to the patron,” McComb stated.

Signal Up for SA Present newsletters.

Comply with us: Apple Information | Google Information | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Fb | Twitter | Or join our RSS Feed