The Nueces River Authority is wanting to build the world's third-largest desalination plant in the Corpus Christi Ship Channel

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — CORRECTION: A quote from Corpus Christi City Manager Peter Zanoni has been updated to reflect a misheard word.

Right now, Harbor Island is basically one big grassy field in the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. It's one that soon could be turned into a multi-billion dollar desalination plant site.

The Nueces River Authority is looking to lease the site from the Port of Corpus Christi and find private financing to build the facility, one that would be the third-largest desal plant in the world.

The goal is for the plant to eventually produce 450 million gallons of water a day, and they're looking for an experienced company to build and operate it.

"Procure a company with 25-plus years of seawater desal experience, and has the design and build the plant under our purview once they get it designed and built, then they would operate it for a period of time,” said Nueces River Authority Executive Director John Byrum.

3NEWS asked the mayor and several council members about the Nueces River Authority’s big plans. Those plans don’t include turning the site over to the city of Corpus Christi to run.

Corpus Christi is dreaming here a bit. Find a company with TWENTY FIVE YEARS?!? of construction and operation experience!! Comments like these show how out of touch politicians are with reality. While a few of these companies exist the price tag for them to come to your project will be extremely high.

One thing I do like is they are looking for private financing but they should look to do a bitcoin deal. Either a bond offering or just do things the old fashion way stack the corn till you have enough to construct the project. You can raise the current utility bill a modest 5 to 10 percent and roll that revenue into a bitcoin fund that will go to the cost of this massive project.

Just my two sats.