Project YaREN represents risk, not progress, to Coastal Bend
By Patrick A. Nye
As published in the Corpus Christi Caller Times on December 4, 2025
The Coastal Bend is a special region, defined by its natural beauty and generations of families who have built their lives between the bays and the brush country. My parents bought a small bay house on Mother’s Day 58 years ago, where my brothers and I learned to fish and explore the spoil islands. Having grown up in Ingleside on the Bay, my wife and I wanted our children and grandchildren to experience the same beauty and freedom we did. But over the years, we’ve watched our bay suffer from one industrial project after another. That’s why we helped found the Coastal Watch Association — to give our community a voice. Like our neighbors, we want safe schools, clean air, good jobs and a strong local economy.
Yet Project YaREN, a proposed ammonia export facility, threatens to undo everything that makes this region worth protecting. Proponents of the project claim it will be “clean” and represents “progress,” but the facts tell a different story. The reality is that living near an industrial ammonia facility is inherently dangerous. Ammonia is a toxic chemical that can cause burns, respiratory failure and death even at low concentrations. A single leak can form dense, ground-level clouds that travel long distances, endangering entire neighborhoods. According to a national watchdog analysis published in 2013, nearly 1,000 accidents had occurred at U.S. anhydrous-ammonia facilities over the prior 15 years. Schools, homes and first responders within a few miles of ammonia facilities face heightened risks of exposure and evacuation events. When a plant like Project YaREN is sited less than 2 miles from an elementary school, that danger is not theoretical; it’s personal.
Claims have been made that “hundreds” of residents support Project YaREN. In reality, CWA’s petition opposing the plant has gathered more than 500 signatures from people living nearby (within a 2-mile radius of the proposed site, over 1,900 residents — including the students and staff of Ingleside Primary School — would be directly affected). And nearly 200 residents have filed as affected parties in the state’s contested case hearing opposing the project’s air permit, where they’ll have the chance to speak to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality about their concerns.
Project YaREN says it will capture 95% of the 3.3 million tons of carbon dioxide it produces and store it underground. If that happens, the companies behind the plant, Yara and Enbridge, would receive $247 million in U.S. taxpayer subsidies. That’s right: Nearly a quarter-billion dollars from American taxpayers would go to two foreign corporations so they can pollute our air and water, export their product overseas and pocket the profits. Meanwhile, our community pays the price with higher health risks and a diminished quality of life.
Some insist that “TCEQ will ensure our safety.” But TCEQ is in the business of approving air or water permits, no matter how polluting. And history tells us not to rely on corporate promises. Yara’s ammonia plant in Trinidad polluted Lisas Bay so badly that local seafood developed cancerous lesions and deformities. Enbridge, meanwhile, is responsible for the largest inland oil spill in U.S. history.
Even without an accident, daily operations of Project YaREN would expose Ingleside and surrounding communities to toxic air emissions — over 18,000 million pounds of new pollutants every day, according to their permit applications. Our area already struggles with high levels of fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) — a pollutant linked to asthma, heart disease and cancer. Because TCEQ has no air monitors in San Patricio County, CWA launched a “citizen science” initiative with the University of Texas at Arlington to fill the gap. These community monitors regularly detect pollution spikes from existing industrial sites. Yet when CWA asked Enbridge to share its own fence-line data during a TCEQ public hearing, they refused. If this is their idea of transparency, how can residents trust anything they say?
The choice we face on Project YaREN is not between jobs or the environment. It’s between a future where foreign corporations receive massive tax subsidies to profit from our coastline, or one where the Coastal Bend remains a safe, livable place for generations to come. Clean air and water are not luxuries — they are the foundation of a healthy economy and community. Project YaREN jeopardizes both.