Vaughn, Paxson and Roy Raise PFAS Contamination Concerns
In a contentious Council work session called to discuss the proposed Inner Harbor desalination project last week, multiple Corpus Christi City Council members raised concerns about documented contamination of "forever chemicals" in the water the facility would process, pressing city staff and contractors for answers just weeks before an expected April 28 vote.
The April 9 meeting marked a significant expansion of Council concern over PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) contamination in the Inner Harbor. While council members Gil Hernandez and Sylvia Campos have raised the issue previously, three additional members – Carolyn Vaughn, Kaylynn Paxson and Everett Roy – publicly voiced concerns for the first time, signaling growing unease over the project’s possible health risks.
"We absolutely need to make sure that there is no PFAS in our desalinated water," Hernandez said during the meeting, questioning whether the project's reverse osmosis system could guarantee removal of the toxic compound. "PFAS chemicals causes cancer, thyroid disease, immune and reproductive issues, and developmental problems in children."
The PFAS issue first surfaced last summer when environmental sampling conducted by Dr. William J. Rogers of West Texas A&M University detected PFOS, one of the most toxic PFAS compounds, at 5.5 parts per trillion (ppt) in Inner Harbor surface water, exceeding the EPA's enforceable Maximum Contaminant Level of 4.0 ppt. Seven additional samples from the November 2024 testing showed PFOS levels ranging from 2.4 to 3.2 ppt.
In June 2025, a coalition of ten community organizations delivered a detailed memorandum to Mayor Paulette Guajardo, the City Council, Port Commission, and city management outlining the health and regulatory implications of the PFAS contamination. The memo revealed that Port and City officials had been briefed on the findings as early as January 2025 but had taken no known action.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times subsequently ran a front-page story highlighting the study’s findings, but the issue has remained unaddressed in the city’s planning documents, including the far-field study commissioned by to study the environmental impacts of the plant on the bay system.
A critical concern raised by council members last week involves what happens to PFAS removed by the desalination process. While reverse osmosis may successfully filter most PFAS from desalinated water, the toxic compounds don't disappear but instead concentrate in the brine waste stream that would be discharged back into the Inner Harbor.
At typical seawater desalination recovery rates of 50%, PFAS in the discharge could be concentrated to roughly twice the levels found in intake water. If the plant draws water containing the documented 5.5 ppt PFOS, the brine discharge could contain 11 ppt PFOS – well above the EPA drinking water limit and more than 100 times the EPA's human health criterion for surface water of 0.06 ppt.
Hernandez also raised concerns about PFAS bioaccumulation in aquatic life, noting the issue was being studied by the Harte Research Institute and UT Marine Sciences Institute, while Council Member Paxson questioned why PFAS had been excluded from the far-field modeling study, and Council Member Vaughn called the PFAS contamination finding "a real concern.”
The April 9 “emergency” meeting was convened by Mayor Guajardo to give a status update ahead of an expected April 28 City Council vote on a new design-build contract with Corpus Christi Desalination Partners. The contract amount is expected to exceed $978 million.
"There are still a lot of questions about PFAS in the Inner Harbor that we need to have answered," Hernandez said.