16 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE TheCoastalBend.com E d i t o r Corpus Christi’s Big Failure Could Become Our Biggest Success—that Finally Unites Us. Earlier this year, Texas Governor Greg Abbott criticized the City of Corpus Chris- ti for “not being able to make a decision,” in solving its long-term water needs. The decision was the City’s go-ahead for the Inner Harbor desalination plant, for which he had been lobbied for years by the Coastal Bend’s most influential state politician, and had pledged hundreds of millions in funding. As far as the Gov- ernor knew, the Inner Harbor desal plant was the best, fully permitted option to deliver a drought-proof water supply to the City’s water system, on which most of the region’s biggest industrial interests depend. Absent a better option, it’s hard to blame the Governor for not understanding the layers of concern that Coastal Benders had about the Inner Harbor project, while vital assets of the oil and gas industry, in particular, were under threat of shutting down for lack of water. As we all know, it’s the fishing industry that is most threat- ened by the prospect of billions of gallons per year of hypersaline effluent water being pumped into the inshore bay system, where most of the fishing takes place in the Coastal Bend. Chief executives at Governor Abbott’s level rely on their chief of staff and the various experts whom they trust to advise on technical matters like public water supply—and when that expert, in particular, scrutinized the en- gineering presentation from AXE H2O, Inc. (see page 62), the company formed in March for the specific purpose of building the world’s most advanced Seawater Reverse Osmosis (SWRO) plant on the Intracoastal Waterway, support for Inner Harbor from the Governor’s office became noticeably unenthusiastic. Supporters of Inner Harbor noticed. Opponents did as well, and within days of AXE H2O’s initial public presentation in front of Corpus Christi City Council, the public was noticing—most evident on social media, where the battle over Inner Harbor has raged for years. Detractors criticized the company for being newly formed, for making promises that sounded too good to be true, and for being secretly funded by big industry—or even worse, Elon Musk! The naysayers inten- tionally left out little details like no public debt, cheaper water, that the company’s plan was presented in full on its website, and that AXE H2O is lead by the most capable team of engineers and experts that could be assembled for this purpose. Fans of AXE H2O most loudly praise its plan to pipe the effluent salt brine three miles into the Gulf, rather than into the inshore bay system. While the company has never presented its offer as a replacement for Inner Harbor, its most vehement supporters saw AXE H2O as a huge threat that needed to the killed in the crib, and they gathered together and put together a plan to do just that. One council member gave an interview to KIII News before the AXE H2O presentation and called it a “shiny object”—before hearing a single word or asking a single question. Keeping to his theme, he looked at Major General John Olson and said, “You are the shiny object.” Indeed. One of the most accomplished officers in the history of the United States Air Force, combat deployed in five wars—a shiny object. Most of the objection from council members, lead by Mayor Paulette Guajardo, was directed toward City Manager Peter Zanoni, who used his legal power under the City Charter to put AXE H2O on the public agenda, but was criticized for not following protocol and vetting the presenters before they reached Council. The fact is that the city manager was not doing some kind of a “solid” for AXE H2O by subjecting them to a vote on whether to continue conversations in the form a busi- ness proposal to the City. If the vote had been lost, then that would have been the end of that, and our best chance to fix the water crisis would be down the road, to build the world’s most advanced desal plant somewhere it’s wanted. A presentation intended to last 20 minutes stretched to more than two hours, as Generals Olson and Matthew Burger, and technical expert Thiago Campos detailed what any clear thinking human being would see as an obviously superior option—those whose minds are not warped into supporting an illogical project while covering their ears and doing that loud La-La-La thing to avoid hearing about any alternative. Four council members expressed their support to move forward with AXE H2O during the Q&A session, i.e. the entire session, while the Mayor and four others seemed unconvinced—two in particular were engaging in ripe interrogation of the company’s team, and like three Jedis fighting off a swarm of attackers, never a strike was missed. When the vote was taken, six voted to move forward, two against, with the Mayor abstaining, perhaps her smartest political maneuver since the water crisis emerged. “You say the cart before the horse? Let me tell you, if the cart’s full of water, I want the cart! If you vote against it, you’re voting against the people!” That was the closer, delivered by Corpus Christi’s own Abuela Queen, Susie Luna Saldaña, generally a defender of the Mayor and critic of her enemies. For the rest of the week, the Mayor and City Manager talked down AXE H2O at every public opportunity, but the following week, after numerous in-person inter- actions with the company’s team, the mood noticeably softened. Mayor Guajardo has publicly equated her political fate with the Inner Harbor project, and so have her enemies who were backing the Nueces River Authority’s Harbor Island proj- ect, in opposition. With Inner Harbor in trouble due to ongoing concerns about cost, debt, time, and the health of the bays, and with Harbor Island in trouble following a whistleblower bombshell and ten felony indictments of a former em- ployee for work-related crimes, perhaps AXE H2O is the lifesaver, offramp, savior of the city, or whatever metaphor you prefer, for all sides—and maybe, at last, Corpus Christians will get the best option for the lowest price. What-a-Dream!
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