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McALLEN — A privately funded $1 billion desalination plant to be located on South Padre Island could provide at least some answers to the Rio Grande Valley’s long-term water challenges.
The RGV Hispanic Chamber of Commerce hosted a press conference Wednesday morning at the Embassy Suites in McAllen introducing RGV Desal, a desalination project which has been in the works for approximately a year-and-a-half now.
In that time U.S. Desal, the national organization, has coordinated with IDE Technologies, an Israel-based global desalination company, to pinpoint the optimal location for a South Texas facility, ultimately landing on South Padre Island for its proximity to the Gulf.
Once completed, the large-scale seawater desalination facility will have the capacity to convert 50 million gallons of seawater into potable drinking water per day. The water will then be sold to water districts throughout the Valley, offering an opportunity to expand the region’s water portfolio, which at this time, relies heavily on the Rio Grande, brackish groundwater and recycled water.
According to Albert Escobedo, South Texas government affairs director for U.S. Desal and RGV Desal, the project first started in Brownsville, and has now expanded regionally to encompass both Hidalgo and Cameron counties.
The $1 billion facility will be privately funded, according to U.S. Desal board member and regulatory counsel Doug Allison, a Corpus Chisti native. The transportation of the water from the facility to throughout the Valley will be heavily reliant on state and federal dollars, as well as grant and loan opportunities.
Allison says the land has been secured, the permit applications will be filed within two months, and support engineering is already underway.
“We are way beyond fact finding,” said Allison. “We are way beyond preliminary. I wouldn’t be here if we weren’t going to do this.”
Cynthia M. Sakulenzki, RGV Hispanic Chamber of Commerce president and CEO, painted the picture of what the current state of the Valley’s water supply means for the future.
“For years, water has been one of our greatest challenges facing our region,” she said, adding that water isn’t simply a resource — it is the foundation of public health, agriculture and economic development.
“Without a dependable water supply, our ability to attract new businesses, expand existing industries, build homes and create jobs becomes increasingly difficult,” she continued.
Allison built on these points. Despite recent rains stemming from the Super El Nino, the water crisis in the Valley is real, and long-term, Allison says. Compared to North Texas, South Texas sees “tremendously slight rainfall.” He foresees the challenges continuing as the population grows.
“We know that the demand is increasing,” he said. “We know that the supply is decreasing.”
Desalination could provide an unlimited water supply, says Allison. He called it “the only long-term, sustainable, uninterruptible supply of water.”
Since the facility will be located on the Island, RGV Desal will have to find a way to get the water to the mainland, where they will likely construct a storage facility. Allison says there’s many options, but RGV Desal has been coordinating with the Texas Department of Transportation, and they have come up with a plan to possibly transport the water across the bay with the second causeway.
However, it is looking like the desal facility might be completed long before the new bridge, meaning RGV Desal may have to lay pipe across the Laguna Madre, which Allison said they were prepared for.
Then the question becomes how to transport the water throughout the rest of the Valley in a cost efficient manner. From the storage facility, the water will enter a distribution system, which has raised concerns regarding transport prices to farther away cities like McAllen and Edinburg, which are around 80 miles from SPI. At this time, RGV Desal does not have an estimate on how much it will cost to transport the water.
“It’s not going to be a small cost,” Allison said. “There’s going to be a lot of things that go into really figuring out what is going to be the actual cost to the community.”
However, Allison emphasized they will be selling the water at a fixed rate from their “fenceline” — their water storage facility.
To make the project regional for at least Hidalgo and Cameron counties, RGV Desal has been coordinating with multiple water districts and public utility departments on rights-of-way, including in Brownsville, Rio Hondo, Alamo, McAllen and the Laguna Madre.
Mark Vega, McAllen public utilities director, was at Wednesday’s conference. He foresees McAllen possibly purchasing some of the water, but the amount greatly depends on what the transportation costs will be.
Vega hopes the number will be lower than $10 per 1,000 gallons, but his ideal range is $5 to $6 per 1,000 gallons in order to keep water rates within the city as low as possible.
The funding for the infrastructure needed to distribute the water to water districts throughout the Valley could be provided through a historic state investment approved by the Texas Legislature in 2025. Senate Bill 7 calls for the allocation of more than $2.5 billion in one-time funding for water projects.
Additionally, House Joint Resolution 7 proposes dedicating $1 billion annually to Texas water infrastructure projects every year for 20 years.
While cost remains a major consideration, environmental concerns also took center stage at the conference.
Allison ensured that the project could be delivered in an environmentally supportive manner if done successfully. He repeatedly showed footage of abundant marine life at the discharge location of a major desalination facility in Australia in an attempt to “demystify” the process and prove its environmental sustainability.
Allison added that taking pressure off the Rio Grande could have a positive environmental impact, and taking pressure off groundwater would benefit farmers and ranchers throughout the region.
The technology behind desalination has evolved, says Allison. He says those changes have made it a more environmentally friendly process. He explained that old processes resulted in the discharged water being much hotter than today’s technology provides, causing adverse environmental impacts.
Those discharges were not put through a high-velocity diffuser — a new reverse osmosis technology that allows for rapid dilution, returning water to background levels.
At the SPI facility, located north of South Padre Island city limits, both the discharge and intake will both be offshore, as per environmentally friendly practice protocols. This should protect the “nursery” of the Laguna Madre Bay and its plentiful sea grasses which serve as a crucial food and habitat source for marine life.
Having intake offshore also means the water quality will be more certain and predictable, according to Allison.
He stressed that the potential environmental impact has been thoroughly vetted. Allison cited literature reviews specific to the Texas Gulf Coast, species-specific studies, and multiple papers on bay estuaries published in scientific journals.
To illustrate the minimal impact, Allison referenced the “canary in a coalmine” metaphor. In this case, the canary, the most sensitive being in the environment to consider, would be red drum larvae. According to Allison, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality confirmed the facility would be protective of the larvae.
“We have a tremendous body of evidence to speak to that,” said Allison. “I grew up in these bays. I would not be here if I wasn’t 100% convinced we could do this safely.”
According to Allison, a 50 million gallons per day (MGD) capacity facility translates into a $55 billion increase in economic activity, and the Island plant has the potential to be scaled up to 120 MGD.
At this time, there are only two large-scale desalination facilities in the U.S., despite their commonality across the globe. Saudi Arabia has a 2.5 billion gallons per day facility, Australia has a 108 MGD facility and Israel has a 550 MGD facility.
“The United States, quite frankly, has put off and put off utilizing this technology,” said Allison. “It’s done all over the world.”
The largest desal facility in the Western Hemisphere is located in Carlsbad, California, with a capacity of 54 MGD. According to Allison, the permits for the SPI facility are twice as restrictive in terms of compliance compared to Carlsbad.
U.S. Desal, the first group to secure the necessary permits to bring the technology to the U.S. on a large scale, has teamed up with IDE Technologies, an Israeli company building desalination facilities across the globe, including the one in Carlsbad, California for this project. IDE Technologies also provide water to all of Israel, and produce a surplus which they sell to Jordan.
Allison was in Houston with members of IDE last week as they collaborated on the permit applications. Additionally, when they were still in the land search phase, he toured members of IDE around the Island.
RGV Desal has been doing outreach at local colleges for the labor force that will be operating the facility. According to Escobedo, most of the jobs will be local hires.
When RGV Desal actually breaks ground depends on the demand on local resources, says Allison.
“In other words, we can do this in five years or we can do this in three years,” he said.
Permitting could possibly be expedited, and once construction begins, it will take two years for the facility to be operational.
Once completed, the facility would be one of the largest desalination projects in the nation. It would introduce a new water source to a region that has spent years looking for long-term solutions to recurring shortages. How to distribute that resource cost efficiently remains the largest hang-up.