CRP pursuing a new groundwater proposal: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/here-s-how-corpus-christi-city-council-voted-on-169-5-million-groundwater-proposal/

Link above doesn't work. Assume this talks about the same deal.

https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/in-your-neighborhood/corpus-christi/corpus-christi-considers-paying-61-million-above-appraisal-for-groundwater-rights

Yes. Thanks. The KRIS link has much more detail.

schmellba99 said:

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Link above doesn't work. Assume this talks about the same deal.

https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/in-your-neighborhood/corpus-christi/corpus-christi-considers-paying-61-million-above-appraisal-for-groundwater-rights

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Salty water. Many a pivot has been run off of these wells, only to salt the ground out to a point of being marginally productive. They quit watering, let the salt leach for a few years, then do it again.

B-1 83 said:

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schmellba99 said:

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Link above doesn't work. Assume this talks about the same deal.

https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/in-your-neighborhood/corpus-christi/corpus-christi-considers-paying-61-million-above-appraisal-for-groundwater-rights

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Salty water. Many a pivot has been run off of these wells, only to salt the ground out to a point of being marginally productive. They quit watering, let the salt leach for a few years, then do it again.

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That's where the RO comes in. But you have almost the same problem that you'd have with the desal plant that the City sht canned a month or so ago - you will have brine discharge and need a place to send it. Your choices are discharge in the bay or deep well inject, which costs a lot more to do.

So total project cost of $840 million dollars without any permits in place (which will almost certainly go up when they start actually putting pen to paper for contracts) to get about 40% of the output they were going to get from the fully permitted desal plant they cancelled over a $1.2B price tag? Brilliant!

Being uneducated in this topic, this was still my initial reaction as well.

If that shakes out, then it turns out the cost was never the issue...it was the supposed environmental impact however real that may or may not have been.

It seems to me a desal plant would be a much better long-term solution since it's pulling from an unlimited supply of water. I assume the same can't be said for ground water but I don't know.

Now someone is talking about building one on Galveston Bay at the old PH Robinson power plant location.

Well, this came back up for vote yesterday by CRP city council and they passed it this time. I guess the actual reality of running out of water and business leaving the area finally woke people the f* up.

Not to mention the only backup plan we've seen was going to ultimately cost about the same as just doing the desal plant while being an inferior solution.

Glad common sense prevailed.

Edit: This is not a done deal. They passed a vote to continue pursuing it to get new bids.

schmellba99 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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schmellba99 said:

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Link above doesn't work. Assume this talks about the same deal.

https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/in-your-neighborhood/corpus-christi/corpus-christi-considers-paying-61-million-above-appraisal-for-groundwater-rights

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Salty water. Many a pivot has been run off of these wells, only to salt the ground out to a point of being marginally productive. They quit watering, let the salt leach for a few years, then do it again.

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That's where the RO comes in. But you have almost the same problem that you'd have with the desal plant that the City sht canned a month or so ago - you will have brine discharge and need a place to send it. Your choices are discharge in the bay or deep well inject, which costs a lot more to do.

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Is option #3 pumping it a mile offshore and diffusing it to limit localized impacts to the receptor area?

I don't understand why it's one or another. Offshore pumping has disappeared from this conversation and it's probably due to $$$$

From KRIS:

[url]https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/in-your-neighborhood/corpus-christi/corpus-christi-city-council-advances-desalination-project-with-new-partnership Corpus Christi City Council advances desalination project with new partnership[/url]

Ag83 said:

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Now someone is talking about building one on Galveston Bay at the old PH Robinson power plant location.

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How convenient that the old derelict cooling towers are now mostly gone.

Ag83 said:

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Now someone is talking about building one on Galveston Bay at the old PH Robinson power plant location.

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Convenient that what was left of the plant just happened to burn to the ground over the weekend too.

Bird Poo said:

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schmellba99 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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schmellba99 said:

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Link above doesn't work. Assume this talks about the same deal.

https://www.kristv.com/news/local-news/in-your-neighborhood/corpus-christi/corpus-christi-considers-paying-61-million-above-appraisal-for-groundwater-rights

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Salty water. Many a pivot has been run off of these wells, only to salt the ground out to a point of being marginally productive. They quit watering, let the salt leach for a few years, then do it again.

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That's where the RO comes in. But you have almost the same problem that you'd have with the desal plant that the City sht canned a month or so ago - you will have brine discharge and need a place to send it. Your choices are discharge in the bay or deep well inject, which costs a lot more to do.

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Is option #3 pumping it a mile offshore and diffusing it to limit localized impacts to the receptor area?

I don't understand why it's one or another. Offshore pumping has disappeared from this conversation and it's probably due to $$$$

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Piping the brine offshore is a potential option, but it is the most expensive option by far.

schmellba99 said:

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Ag83 said:

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Now someone is talking about building one on Galveston Bay at the old PH Robinson power plant location.

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Convenient that what was left of the plant just happened to burn to the ground over the weekend too.

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I was thinking exactly that myself.

Ag83 said:

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schmellba99 said:

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Ag83 said:

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Now someone is talking about building one on Galveston Bay at the old PH Robinson power plant location.

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Convenient that what was left of the plant just happened to burn to the ground over the weekend too.

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I was thinking exactly that myself.

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Me too, evidently.

They probably gave a San Leon crackhead a bottle of mad dog, a can of gas, a lighter and twenty bucks and told him to go get warm.

Milwaukees Best Light said:

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They probably gave a San Leon crackhead a bottle of mad dog, a can of gas, a lighter and twenty bucks and told him to go get warm.

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Hey now! Could have been a Bacliff crackhead, don't discriminate.

YouBet said:

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Well, this came back up for vote yesterday by CRP city council and they passed it this time. I guess the actual reality of running out of water and business leaving the area finally woke people the f* up.

Not to mention the only backup plan we've seen was going to ultimately cost about the same as just doing the desal plant while being an inferior solution.

Glad common sense prevailed.

Edit: This is not a done deal. They passed a vote to continue pursuing it to get new bids.

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Wow so they essentially are starting the process over 2 months after killing yet? The bureaucrats, elected officials, and city "interest" reps involved should be looked into on how they might profit off this. This is going to result in an early cost "estimate" by the city and its hired engineering rep that then is shockingly discovered to be 1/2 of the actual cost in a few years again. It's happening country wide on a huge amount of infrastructure projects.

Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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YouBet said:

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Well, this came back up for vote yesterday by CRP city council and they passed it this time. I guess the actual reality of running out of water and business leaving the area finally woke people the f* up.

Not to mention the only backup plan we've seen was going to ultimately cost about the same as just doing the desal plant while being an inferior solution.

Glad common sense prevailed.

Edit: This is not a done deal. They passed a vote to continue pursuing it to get new bids.

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Wow so they essentially are starting the process over 2 months after killing yet? The bureaucrats, elected officials, and city "interest" reps involved should be looked into on how they might profit off this. This is going to result in an early cost "estimate" by the city and its hired engineering rep that then is shockingly discovered to be 1/2 of the actual cost in a few years again. It's happening country wide on a huge amount of infrastructure projects.

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There are a lot of reasons why things like this happens, but the two single biggest reasons are:

1. Engineers are absolutely horrible at estimating the cost of projects. I mean absolutely, positively, beyond terrible. Most of them are using pricing structures that are 15-20 years old and have absolutely zero clue what modern costs to construct are.

2. Owners are notorious for adding to the scope of work and thinking that it won't affect cost. A couple of minor things here and there won't, but when you start changing things like materials, controlling methods of construction and - most commonly - shrinking the schedule - all of those add to cost. Sometimes they add a ton of cost.

Throw in other things like changing regulations, raw material costs before it ever gets to where a contractor can buy the widget, labor costs, etc. and it becomes fairly dynamic. Especially on mega projects that take years to finalize from conception to a design that can be bid on.

I disagree with both those points being the biggest cause in most of these cases, but this likely isn't the place to argue it.

Aggie_Boomin 21 said:

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I disagree with both those points being the biggest cause in most of these cases, but this likely isn't the place to argue it.

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You can disagree, no issue. Thats just my 25 or so years in the industry on both sides speaking.

I would like to hear your opinions on why.

I read somewhere that the city will take Kiewitt's plans/design to other contractors so not exactly starting completely over.

will.mcg said:

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I read somewhere that the city will take Kiewitt's plans/design to other contractors so not exactly starting completely over.

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Yes, it's in the article I posted above.

Just reading this and I'm confused. Why can't they build pipelines to take well water into the Corpus area from areas with good groundwater? Looks like that would be Much cheaper. Corpus could buy land, drill wells, and own and operate everything. Not sure why they haven't already done this.
I'm not familiar with that area but we have irrigation wells in the Houston area that produce over 4MGD per well.

Mas89 said:

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Just reading this and I'm confused. Why can't they build pipelines to take well water into the Corpus area from areas with good groundwater? Looks like that would be Much cheaper. Corpus could buy land, drill wells, and own and operate everything. Not sure why they haven't already done this.
I'm not familiar with that area but we have irrigation wells in the Houston area that produce over 4MGD per well.

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This was the cobbled together backup plan that is/was being pursued after they voted down the desal plant in the first place. However, they were getting into fights with smaller communities over it and the costs to do that are going to be about the same as just doing the desal plant without pissing off your neighbors and making yourself reliable on someone else's ground water which is also less renewable than sea water.

Thus, I'm guessing that's why they went back to the board on the desal plant.

Mas89 said:

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Just reading this and I'm confused. Why can't they build pipelines to take well water into the Corpus area from areas with good groundwater? Looks like that would be Much cheaper. Corpus could buy land, drill wells, and own and operate everything. Not sure why they haven't already done this.
I'm not familiar with that area but we have irrigation wells in the Houston area that produce over 4MGD per well.

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Because it isn't cheaper to spend years obtaining water rights from areas not close to Corpus, often having to go through litigation to get those rights, design a system of wells and collection fields that feed a pipeline (or pipelines), pump stations, cooling facilities, etc. and transfer the water from however many miles away to Corpus. Oh, that pipeline requires a huge endeavor in getting easements or buying the ROW land for the pipline to go through.

Beyond that, there are maintenances costs, etc. Which is why cities don't operate those systems and private companies do most of the time.

It's absolutely doable, the Vista Ridge pipeline that feeds water from Giddings, Burton, etc. to San Antonio does the same thing. But that pipeline ran about $1B to construct 15 years ago and only works because SAWS has a guarantee to buy a certain amount of water over a long period of time. And that cost was just to get the water to the SAWS infrastructure, they have to treat it after the fact so there are more costs on top of the cost of getting it there.

Also "good groundwater" isn't as easy to find as many think, and that definition is somewhat subjective.

That makes sense. I guess. But I bet they could find plenty of pipeline corridors to add a big pipe to.
Took them 50 years, but the city of Houston finally got their new canal installed from the Trinity river to lake Houston, where they have a huge water treating facility. 28 miles of new construction canal was a big project, with 50 plus years of planning/ talking/ Indian burial grounds/water rights/ TCEQ permit bs to wade thru. I still think they should add some big reservoirs along the canal route in timber/ farm land while they still can for the rare droughts when Livingston and Conroe are low.

I'd gladly sell Corpus 20 mgd. They just need the pipe.

Mas89 said:

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That makes sense. I guess. But I bet they could find plenty of pipeline corridors to add a big pipe to.
Took them 50 years, but the city of Houston finally got their new canal installed from the Trinity river to lake Houston, where they have a huge water treating facility. 28 miles of new construction canal was a big project, with 50 plus years of planning/ talking/ Indian burial grounds/water rights/ TCEQ permit bs to wade thru. I still think they should add some big reservoirs along the canal route in timber/ farm land while they still can for the rare droughts when Livingston and Conroe are low.

I'd gladly sell Corpus 20 mgd. They just need the pipe.

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First of all, I have no idea WTF I'm talking about.

B...it seems like the desal plant is the easier solution simply because of footprint and proximity rather than piping ground water from all over south texas. We have an unlimited supply of water lapping up against downtown Corpus. I know desal plants are costly and not easy projects, but it still seems way more logical than piping ground water and potentially draining that resource to nothing, if not managed well.

Mas89 said:

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That makes sense. I guess. But I bet they could find plenty of pipeline corridors to add a big pipe to.
Took them 50 years, but the city of Houston finally got their new canal installed from the Trinity river to lake Houston, where they have a huge water treating facility. 28 miles of new construction canal was a big project, with 50 plus years of planning/ talking/ Indian burial grounds/water rights/ TCEQ permit bs to wade thru. I still think they should add some big reservoirs along the canal route in timber/ farm land while they still can for the rare droughts when Livingston and Conroe are low.

I'd gladly sell Corpus 20 mgd. They just need the pipe.

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That was thge Caper's Ridge project, I looked at the pump station portion of it pretty hard but ultimately we decided not to bid. It feeds Luce Bayou, which feeds Lake Houston, which is the source water for the NEWTP that just started producing water at a cost of around $1.8B, give or take a few bucks. And that doesn't include the distrubution line from NEWTP to North and West Harris County Water Authorities.

Here's the thing about reservoirs - they require a certain type of terrain, or a massive amount of earthwork to build levees. And we don't have that along the gulf coast for the most part. Which is why even the larger reservoirs like Lake Houston are shallow. It's also hard and expensive and time consuming to obtain the land, even through the ED process.

On pipeline corridors/easements/ROW's - just because one exists somewhere doesn't mean it's a free for all to get to use it. And, generally speaking, if an existing ROW is has petroleum products in the pipeline, water isn't going to run next to it for what I'd hope are pretty obvious reasons.

And if you have 20mgd of groundwater to sell, you need to be in front of Corpus now making deals. Helps if you have a contractor that will enter into a P3 project agreement.

Keep in mind that pulling groundwater too close to the coast risks saltwater intrusion in the aquifer and also risks causing subsidence that can make an area more flood/storm surge prone. Further from the coast there are a lot of agricultural users, and most of the water is already spoken for. The GCDs have "desired future conditions" for their aquifers that limit the modeled available groundwater in each area. In most cases, there is very little of that groundwater left that is free for taking. To get large quantities like what Corpus needs, you would almost certainly be buying rights from somebody else, which means putting those other users out of business. Houston and surrounding areas buying up those water rights (in response to Senate Bill 1 passed decades ago requiring municipalities to have a 50 year water plan) is part of why we don't have much rice farming west of Houston anymore.

There is a large volume of brackish groundwater available that can be made drinkable via desal, but then you have to have a place to get rid of the brine, which isn't a simple task as the genesis of this thread shows. If you are in Corpus and your major users are all right on the bay, it doesn't make sense to go inland and do brackish desal, then pipe the brine and the clean water both back to the coast.

As for what caused the cost to go up on the CC project that is back from the dead, it was mostly the client changing their requests for the output volume of the plant. When you triple the designed output of the plant, it should not be a shock for the price to go up by 60%.