66 THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE TheCoastalBend.com C o m m u n i t y Tony Amos at the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, my salinity tests off Snoopy’s Pier in the middle of the summer averaged 47 PPT, Black Sea level, and significantly above the Gulf average of 33 to 35 PPT. That was before the opening of Packery Channel, which lowered salinity in the bay system, but the natural ten- dency is hypersalinity—before the City of Corpus Christi pumps 16 billion gallons a year of super-salty water into the very back of our inshore bays. Hypersalinity leads to hypoxia, the reduction of oxygen in water, which makes fish and other sealife work harder to survive and can kill them off en masse. For those of us who have been here for a minute, we have seen and smelled fish kills along Laguna Shores Road and on the back side of the islands, especially in hot, dry summers when salinity soars. An environmental committee of 18 meet- ing three times a month will not change what every boater and fisherman already knows—the Inner Harbor desal project will kill the bay system. The only feasible locations for seawater desalination in the Coastal Bend are on the Intracoastal Wa- terway, where effluent salt brine can be piped offshore, the AXE H2O plan that also includes source water intake from the deep Gulf, as opposed to the most polluted water source you could find on the Texas Gulf Coast, in the Inner Harbor. If you happen to be that one boater or fisherman who is in favor the Inner Harbor project, perhaps cost is a factor that interests you? AXE H2O is privately funded, re- quiring no additional debt to be taken on by the citizens of Corpus Christi—none. The cost of water produced by the plant is $6.50/kgal (per-thousand-gallons) ver- sus $9.90 from Inner Harbor, and up to $15/kgal for the seemingly-defunct Harbor Left: AI-powered digital twin of the plant. Right: Sorek 2 desal plant in Israel.
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