Rising sea levels, increasing air pollution, plastic pellets in our waters, and increasing industrial demands for precious water resources are now having a direct impact on the coastal bend, its communities, bays, estuaries, public health, and properties. The direction taken by local elected officials will determine whether or not protecting our current quality of life, recreational interests, tourism, and the local economy will take precedence or whether new industrial development will exacerbate the impacts in the future.
During their terms in office, our local elected officials make a variety of decisions and take action on many matters that affect the local environment and public health.
County Commissioners, cities, local school boards, and other taxing jurisdictions determine whether to offer tax abatements as incentives for heavy industry to locate here. They create reinvestment zones for heavy industry and offer Industrial District Agreements and other incentives that reduce the taxes paid by those industries.
City and county elected officials pay the local Economic Development Corporations tens of thousands of dollars to promote growth and have the power to move the emphasis from heavy industry to a more diverse and sustainable economy. Their lead can bring in more heavy industrial and plastics manufacturing facilities that impact our air quality and impact the delicate balance that sustains aquatic growth in our bays and estuaries, or they can lead us in a different direction toward moderate, low impact development.
Their decisions impact our supply of water for municipal and industrial use. The more water demands new industries require, the more stress on the supply system, forcing decisions that are not in the best interests of the local communities who rely on the system.
County Commissioners in San Patricio and Nueces County, together with the City of Corpus Christi appoint Commissioners to the Port of Corpus Christi, a Port that has become more and more authoritarian in its efforts to grow, discounting, ignoring, and belittling those who seek alternatives to their massive industrialization plan. Those non- elected commissioners are accountable only to our elected officials who appoint them. They need to be given proper direction from the County Commissioners and the City of Corpus Christi to stem the tide of this disastrous course.
Local State Representatives and State Senators can influence legislation that protects the coastal bend, its people and its waters. They provide committee oversight to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the General Land Office, Texas Parks and Wildlife, and other agencies that are established to protect public health and natural resources.