Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Public Comment Desalination Estuaries topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
Public commenters urge caution on desalination and estuary discharges; TCEQ warns about ex parte limits
Summary
During the public-comment period, speakers urged the commission to consider estuarine salinity impacts and to use previously studied offshore ‘green zones’ for seawater desalination discharges; the chair reminded speakers that ex parte rules constrain discussion of pending permit matters.
Several members of the public addressed the commission during the Feb. 13 public-comment session, pressing the agency to consider estuary salinity impacts in permit decisions and to encourage desalination applicants to use studied offshore "green zones" for intake and discharge.
Jason Hale of Corpus Christi urged the commission to account for heightened salinity in barrier-island estuaries and to require three-dimensional hydrodynamic mixing models for high-volume, hypersaline discharges to better represent mixing and local concentration patterns. Hale said simple one-dimensional models can understate localized impacts in systems with low flushing.
Kathy Fulton urged the commission and applicants to consult a 2019 TCEQ marine seawater desalination diversion-and-discharge zones study (adopted by TCEQ in November 2019 under the agency’s expedited-permit program) and to prefer the study’s mapped "green zones" — areas the study identified as relatively better sites for discharge — rather than placing brine into semi-enclosed bays such as portions of the Corpus Christi system or Redfish Bay. Fulton warned that bays with slow circulation can retain brine and raise local salinity for long periods, stressing nursery habitat and fisheries.
A separate commenter, Errol Summerlin, sought to read prior written comments on an upcoming desalination permit but was advised by the chair that ex parte prohibitions and notice requirements prevent the commission from engaging on a matter that has not been noticed for discussion at the current meeting; commissioners cautioned that public comment offered outside an appropriate noticed proceeding could be used by opposing parties in subsequent adjudicatory settings.
The commission limited public-comment time to three minutes per speaker and noted that it could not comment on pending contested permits during the public-comment period because of ex parte and notice constraints.
