The Corpus Christi area is an array of islands amidst wetlands, peninsulas, bays, lagoons, marshlands, and grasslands with blue-green subtropical water everywhere. Homes, condos, hotels are all on little inlets on the edges of wetlands all ringed with this beautiful aqua water with egrets, herons, plovers, terns, and so many other birds within sight at every turn, fishing amidst the sea grasses. Everywhere you look, water is almost at the same level as the land and people are waist-deep fishing, motorboating, or swimming on the beaches that seem to be everywhere. Driving through the area means crossing over bridge after bridge, some small, others lengthy. The tiny islands of the wetlands are scattered everywhere and the hues of blue and green predominate the landscape. At the same time, Corpus Christi is also the epicenter of the refining and transport of crude oil and more recently dirty liquefied methane gas, also known as LNG (liquid “natural” gas).
“Through 2023, the Port of Corpus Christi had a record 203 million tons of cargo, cementing its status as the United States’ largest gateway for crude oil exports and a top exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG),” according to Wikipedia and other sources.
To allow for the numerous huge oil and LNG tankers coming into Corpus Christi Bay from Aransas Channel, the bay and channel have been dredged and deepened as well as widened several times over the decades, which essentially destroys the delicate wetland systems there. Currently, the Port of Corpus Christi is the deepest and widest port on the Gulf Coast to accommodate these giant oil and LNG tankers that are constantly coming in and out of the port to go to other parts of the country or most often overseas. Additionally, only a month before I arrived, a new bridge opened connecting Corpus Christi downtown to Portland. I have driven over many long bridges, including into NYC, but never over a bridge that angles so steeply high for such a long distance, a long steep dizzying gain of altitude that gives the sensation of the ascent of a rollercoaster. You remain suspended at that height and angle for some time, before a long and steep ascent down. I’ve done it four or five times now, and it does not get less scary. This dizzyingly high new bridge was built to accommodate the enormously tall ships and tankers coming through the bay. Harbor Bridge is the longest cable-stayed bridge in North America and its main tower stands 538 feet tall with a span of 1,655 feet and the clearance is 205 feet.
I have also heard that there are plans to further widen Aransas Channel which leads out of Corpus Christi Bay so ships can turn around on their own rather than tug boats guiding them around as has been the case.
The Port of Corpus Christi describes itself as “Strategically located near major United States oil and gas production areas, PCCA is a premier logistics partner and gateway for the efficient supply of energy to the world—including growing markets in Latin America, Europe and Asia. PCCA is a major crude oil refinery hub comprising of six refineries. The top petroleum commodities handled by PCCA include crude oil, diesel, gasoline, fuel oil, naphtha and jet fuel. Additionally, the public oil docks in the Inner Harbor can handle many liquid bulk cargo commodities, including petroleum and petrochemical products.
The berths of the public oil docks range from 246 feet (75 meters) to 1,000 feet (304.8 meters), with depths up to 47 feet*—with the capacity to handle Suezmax size (160,000 DWT) crude oil tankers capable of loading 1,200,000 barrels of crude oil. Several industry customers of the Port of Corpus Christi operate multiple private terminals and oil docks including crude oil export facilities at Ingleside with berths designed to handle Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) size (300,000 DWT) crude oil tankers capable of loading 2,000,000 barrels of crude oil.
*In 2025, the Port of Corpus Christi is expected to conclude the fourth and final phase of the Port of Corpus Christi Ship Channel Improvement Project, a national infrastructure initiative that will increase the depth of the ship channel to 54 feet Mean Lower Low Water (MLLW).” The port of Corpus Christi also describes its dirty liquefied methane gas infrastructure: “The Port of Corpus Christi—in partnership with Cheniere Energy’s Corpus Christi Liquefaction facility (CCL)—made Texas history by successfully exporting LNG to Europe. Cheniere currently has three fully operational LNG production trains designed to produce ~5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) and a vast project site on the newly deepened 54-foot-deep La Quinta Ship Channel, only about 15 nautical miles from open waters of the Texas Gulf Coast.
CCL’s expansion will consist of seven “midscale” trains that will add approximately 10+ mtpa of production capacity, creating the potential to increase the LNG export capability to more than 25 mtpa. Full production is expected to begin in 2027.”
The route for oil and LNG tankers out of Corpus Christi Bay is through Aransas Pass which touches the city of Port Aransas at the tip of Mustang Island, a barrier island. A bustling tourist spot and retirement community, Port Aransas is a lively but also chill island where families and couples move about in golf carts to the many restaurants, shops, beaches and other spots for outdoor recreation, including birding.
As I walked near the Ferry station on Aransas Pass in Port Aransas, I saw many beautiful juvenile green turtles eating the algae on the rocks of the jetty, the yellow squares of their faces illuminated as they came up for air. Every day the surface water temperature seems to be higher than average, the air temperature in the upper 90s, easily moving into the 100s with the humidity. Earlier in the week, Jace Tunnell told me how he had rescued a juvenile turtle in the vicinity, had come just in time, as it was entrapped in a single line of fishing wire, submerged and not able to breathe. Had he been even a couple of minutes later, it would not have survived; it was limp and he drove it himself to Amos Rehabilitation Keep here in Port Aransas. Sports and recreational fishing is a major pastime here and locals say some areas are overfished.
Later in the day, I saw more turtles on another jetty closeby to the channel, as well as dolphins diving in the water as enormous oil and LNG tankers passed by like clockwork, every 15 minutes or so. Simply Googling the vessel and vesselfinder shows the cargo and the cities that the vessel has stopped at and the country of origin.
Early that morning, I had attended a guided birding event sponsored by Port Aransas Nature Preserve at the Leonabelle Turnbull Birding Center. The Center consists of 1300 acres of land preserved in 2008 and has two boardwalks totaling 1,225 feet over the freshwater wetlands. The boardwalks feature two shaded observation platforms, benches, and two spotting scopes. The site is also connected to the Nature Preserve at Charlie’s Pasture South Trail, which continues 1.25 miles over salt marsh and grassland prairie habitats. The walk includes an observation tower about halfway down the trail.
As soon as we started along the boardwalk, we came across the most startling sight. The greatest assortment and abundance of the most beautiful birds assembled together in one area that I have ever seen! Numerous roseate spoonbills, great egrets, snowy egrets, a great blue heron, a line of cormorants perched on posts in the water. It was astounding to witness! The guide, Ray, showed a photo of his nearby backyard from the week before and it looked like the Manhattan of birds as the hundred or more birds were nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with each other.
As we turned the corner, and across a bridge, a mother purple gallinule, the deepest of purples with a streak of red across her beak and a yellow tip nurtured a single small chick, fuzzy purple, tottering on a thick branch in the water.
From the observation platform, we saw that the water was absolutely teeming with many schools of fish swaying in every direction! The entire shallows were brimming with small, gleaming fish of all sizes! Some larger fish also came to the edge. It was a smorgasbord for the birds and no wonder they were so numerous! This new vantage point revealed additional birds, a white ibis, mottled ducks, red-winged blackbirds, a black-necked stilt, a tri-color egret, and a white-morphed red egret! Two giant frigate birds known for spending most of their lives in the air, floated by, touching the water here and there perhaps for quick drink. They eat fish that jump out of the water or trouble other birds to steal their catch! Their magnificent wide wing spans and dark forms with a white underbelly and a scissored tail are so regal.
Our guides, Ray and Leslie, also showed me American Abisets, Forster and Black Terns, Coots, and others! Least terns danced through the sky with their small quick white bodies making sharp turns and leaps through the air. They told me that the last Audubon Society Bird Christmas Bird Count found 109 different bird species in this location and the prior one 119. All of this grandeur with the ship channel a very short distance away and the parade of giant oil and LNG tankers going by every 15 minutes on the clock right in the background.
At the end of my day in Port Aransas, I walked by the ship channel once again, which is adjacent to the other side of the preserve at Charlie’s Pasture at Port Street. I strolled across the enormously long boardwalks over the wind tidal salt flats, over water and large areas sand. The area struck me as less a wild preserve and more of a viewing and recreational area for humans. There was no water at all in the salt flats and though I did see a few birds in the evening, the overall feeling was too dry, too devoid of water, drought conditions. I saw little life except for a blue heron in the distance and many terns. I exited as the sun was setting, and dolphins chased the front of the tanker in the channel, leaping over and over at the bow, lifted by water cresting across the ship’s front edges.
