Galveston County residents and environmental activists expressed concerns and asked questions about a proposed desalination plant near Galveston Bay on Tuesday night.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) held the public meeting, as one of the steps in the approval process before it decides whether to grant Canadian-based utility company EPCOR Utilities Inc. the wastewater discharge permit required to build the plant.
The proposed Bayshore Desalination Facility aims to help with water security in the region by removing salt and minerals from seawater to produce 24.5 million gallons of drinking water a day for a region that's home to nearly 8 million residents, according to EPCOR.
Many of the concerns centered around the hypersaline brine in the plant's discharge and whether the concentrated saltwater could harm marine life. Others asked why the plant couldn't discharge in the Gulf rather than the smaller, shallower Galveston Bay.
EPCOR representative Michael Irlbeck argued that Region H, the Houston-area water planning region, will need to double its water supply by 2080 to meet demand.
Residents had two opportunities to weigh in on the proposed Bayshore Desalination Facility. During an informal discussion, the public asked questions about the proposed facility to be answered by TCEQ and EPCOR officials.
The meeting also had a formal comment period where residents and environmentalists provided statements to go on the official record.
Britney McWhorter, who works with Turtle Island Restoration Network, expressed concerns at the meeting about the impacts of discharge on the smaller egg and larval species, especially the risk of small organisms being sucked up by the plant’s intake pipes.
"The environmental risks associated with the discharge and intake for desalination are particularly concerning in a semi-enclosed estuary like Galveston Bay that supports so many important species, commercial, recreational and for other industries on the island," McWhorter said.
Galveston County resident Nicholas Ledesma asked officials how far from the discharge point would salinity conditions return to normal.
Irlbeck said models show salinity levels returning to ambient conditions within about two kilometers of the discharge site.
Irlbeck also referred to environmental studies showing that the average salinity levels of the plant's discharge fall within the optimal range for species such as fish, oysters, crab and shrimp and larval recruitment. However, those studies do not address the risk of smaller organisms being sucked up into intake pipes and killed.
In response to resident questions about moving the plant's discharge point out of the bay and into a bigger area like the Gulf, EPCOR representatives said that while moving the discharge location is something that could be looked at, it would be "wildly expensive."
"Kind of makes affordability a challenge on a project like that. When we look at the solution that we’re proposing here and the impacts, we feel like this is fully protective of the ecosystem there," Irlbeck said.
At another point in the meeting, Irlbeck said the proposed site was uniquely suited for a desalination project due to the existing infrastructure there, which is the now-decommissioned PHR Peakers Plant where a fire erupted in November 2025, just about 30 miles southeast of Houston. All five towers of the former power plant collapsed in the fire.
"It was basically designed to move a lot of raw water through a site, so there's a lot of economic investment ... that we get to recover and hopefully bring down the price of water here," Irlbeck said.
TCEQ’s executive director will give a written response to the formal comments, and the formal comments will be considered before officials decide whether to grant EPCOR the wastewater discharge permit needed to build the plant.Residents will have a chance to request a contested hearing before officials make a final decision.
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