Harbor Island Seawater Desalination Facility is the Latest Infrastructure Project to Gain FAST-41 Coverage
Contact Information
Permitting Council Press Office (media@permitting.gov)
WASHINGTON (May 20, 2025) – The Federal Permitting Improvement Steering Council (Permitting Council) is pleased to announce the latest project to receive FAST-41 coverage, the Harbor Island Seawater Desalination Facility Project. If permitted, the project is anticipated to provide up to 100 million gallons of drinking water per day for use by residents on the Gulf coast of Texas.
“The Permitting Council is pleased to welcome the Harbor Island Seawater Desalination Facility project to the FAST-41 program,” said Acting Executive Director Manisha Patel. “Water resource projects are essential to providing safe and clean drinking water to U.S. households and our agency stands ready to bring the benefits of transparency, predictability and accountability to the permitting review of this project.”
Located near Port Aransas in Nueces County, Texas, the Harbor Island Seawater Desalination Facility project will provide up to 100 million gallons per day of drinkable water produced through reverse osmosis processing. The project is sponsored by the Port of Corpus Christi Authority, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Galveston District, is evaluating their Department of the Army permit application.
Learn more about the Harbor Island Seawater Desalination Facility project at permitting.gov.
About the Permitting Council and FAST-41
Established in 2015 by Title 41 of the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41), the Permitting Council is a federal agency charged with improving the transparency and predictability of the federal environmental review and authorization process for certain critical infrastructure projects. The Permitting Council is comprised of the Permitting Council Executive Director, who serves as the Council Chair; 13 federal agency Council members (including deputy secretary-level designees of the Secretaries of Agriculture, Army, Commerce, Interior, Energy, Transportation, Defense, Homeland Security, and Housing and Urban Development, the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Chairs of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation); and the Chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The Permitting Council coordinates federal environmental reviews and authorizations for projects that seek and qualify for FAST-41 coverage. FAST-41 covered projects are entitled to comprehensive permitting timetables and transparent, collaborative management of those timetables on the Federal Permitting Dashboard. FAST-41 covered projects may be in the energy production, electricity transmission, energy storage, surface transportation, aviation, ports and waterways, water resource, broadband, pipelines, manufacturing, mining, carbon capture, semiconductors, artificial intelligence and machine learning, high-performance computing and advanced computer hardware and software, quantum information science and technology, data storage and data management, and cybersecurity sectors.
The Permitting Council also serves as a federal center for permitting excellence, supporting federal efforts to improve infrastructure permitting including and beyond FAST-41 covered projects to the extent authorized by law, including activities that promote or provide for the efficient, timely, and predictable completion of environmental reviews and authorizations for federally-authorized infrastructure projects.
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Last Updated: Tuesday, May 20, 2025