For years these companies have put the health, safety, culture and livability of our communities at risk, while draining local resources and short-changing local government.  For example:

 

• The ExxonMobil/SABIC plastics plant in Portland.  Not only does the plant use almost as much water as all San Patricio County residents and businesses combined, it’s also allowed to dump 9.3 million gallons of industrial wastewater and 1,400 pounds of oil and grease into Corpus Christi Bay every day!

 

• Cheniere’s LNG plant on the La Quinta Channel, which releases hundreds of pounds of pollutants into the air every time its flare is lit, including volatile organic compounds, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.  For the privilege of breathing it all in, local taxpayers get shortchanged by Cheniere’s $857 million tax break, robbing us of much-needed funding for local public services like road repairs and emergency services.  Now the company wants to expand production – and pollution – by 50%!

 

• Enbridge’s $3 billion acquisition of the Moda Ingleside Energy Center, the largest crude oil export hub in North America.  Bringing its long history of trampling on Indigenous communities to San Patricio County, Enbridge is proposing to expand the facility onto ancestral land of the Karankawa Kadla Tribe, where it is believed thousands of cultural artifacts remain. 

 

• Trafigura’s proposed massive offshore crude oil export terminal, Bluewater Texas, with an onshore tank farm located near Taft and new oil pipelines running through Redfish Bay.  The draft air pollution for the project (which could load ‘supertanker’ carrier ships with over a million barrels of crude oil per day) would allow scandal-ridden Trafigura to emit more volatile organic compounds than any other polluter in the country!

 

This is to say nothing of the risk of siting fossil fuel and petrochemical facilities near schools and delicate ecosystems in hurricane-prone areas!

Our public officials should be doing everything in their power to hold corporate polluters accountable.  But instead, local governments in the Coastal Bend have bent over backwards to give them billions of dollars in tax breaks and subsidies, while Port leaders have enthusiastically paved the way for their rapid expansion.

Now the City and Port of Corpus Christi are out to give Coastal Bend polluters their biggest subsidy yet – taxpayer-funded desalinated baywater.  In fact there are FIVE proposed baywater desalination plants on the drawing board, all of which would serve industrial development.

If they’re built, it won’t just mean higher water bills and taxes for residents, but also potential catastrophe for the Corpus Christi Bay.  Why?  Try billions of gallons per year of salty wastewater discharged into the bay, polluting wetlands that serve as the spawning ground and habitat for shrimp, crabs, fish, birds and turtles.  With the potential impact on fishing and tourism, what’s on the line is a lot more than bills and taxes – it’s families' entire livelihoods, and our region's entire way of life.

That’s why San Patricio County residents, and communities throughout the Coastal Bend region, are coming together to DEMAND that our local officials protect us from industrial polluters – and from the Desal Disaster planned for their benefit.

Please, contact our County leaders TODAY and ask them to commit to holding polluters accountable; to commit to ending the practice of giving local tax breaks for fossil fuel and petrochemical corporations; and to commit to STOPPING all five of the proposed baywater desalination plants.  Tell them: it’s our bay and our say!