Officials in Corpus Christi, Texas, picked Kiewit Infrastructure South Co. to design and build the city’s planned Inner Harbor Desalination Plant. Local leaders estimate the project’s cost at $757.6 million.
The seawater desalination plant would have a capacity of 30 million gallons per day. Officials with the city-owned utility Corpus Christi Water plan to build the plant at a site beside the Inner Harbor ship channel, which links the Port of Corpus Christi to the Gulf of Mexico. The plant would both draw from and discharge into the channel.
Kiewit beat out two other shortlisted teams bidding for the work, scoring the highest for its technical proposal and interview, but scoring the weakest on its cost proposal, which officials note was based on fractional cost components and is not indicative of the expected final cost. The firm employs over 1,600 people nearby at a laydown yard in Ingleside, Texas, officials added when announcing the selection.
A Kiewit representative said in a statement that the company plans to partner with “many local subcontractors and suppliers to safely deliver” the plant.
Parent company Kiewit Corp. ranks No. 2 on the ENR 2024 Top 400 Contractors. The firm has past experience with design and construction of desalination plants in California and Texas.
City officials say they anticipate issuing a notice to proceed in December for work to start next year and complete in late 2027.
In July, the Texas Water Development Board approved the city’s application seeking $535.1 million for the project through the state’s State Water Implementation Fund for Texas program.
Local Opposition
The proposal has seen some opposition from locals who say the plant would primarily serve petrochemical facilities at the expense of predominantly Black and Hispanic residents living nearby.
“The City of Corpus Christi has a long-standing pattern of discriminately placing industrial facilities in this historically Black neighborhood, subjecting Black and brown residents to disproportionate adverse health and property impacts from increased industrialization,” Erin Gaines, senior attorney at environmental law nonprofit Earthjustice, said in a statement earlier this year.
Corpus Christi Water, which supplies about 500,000 people, says the desalination plant is needed to help secure the local water supply against drought.
“Much of our future depends on new water supplies,” Drew Molly, chief operating officer of Corpus Christi Water said at an Aug. 7 city council meeting outlining plans for various infrastructure projects including the desalination plant.
