City leaders hear technical case for near‑ and far‑field modeling of proposed Inner Harbor desalination plant

City staff and the design‑build team told the City Council on March 25 that they are continuing detailed hydrodynamic work — including both near‑field and far‑field modeling — as part of the Kiewit design contract for the proposed Inner Harbor desalination plant.

The city’s chief operating officer for Corpus Christi Water, Drew Mollie, summarized work already performed to support permitting and said the draft discharge permit issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) reflects independent modeling the agency performed in parallel with the city’s consultants. “Because there was congruency and because there was an agreement between the two different models, we were able to get our draft discharge permit in December of 2023,” Mollie told council.

GHD and Kiewit described the modeling they are performing as part of the plant design. GHD’s Chris Benjamin said three‑dimensional hydrodynamic modeling is needed to design diffusers and predict plume fate under a range of intake salinities, temperatures and operating recoveries. “We’ve taken all the different factors and all the monitoring data that’s in the permits … and we’re using that holistically to make sure that we can…