By KREIG KOHL
On Tuesday July 26 The Port Isabel Independent School District held a special meeting in order to hear arguments from Texas LNG, Liquified Natural Gas, about being granted a special tax abatement meant for companies that invest in their local communities. This has created an outcry by local communities who do not wish to see Texas LNG in the Rio Grande Valley area.
Texas LNG is a proposed facility between Brownsville and Port Isabel that would use the Port of Brownsville deepwater ship channel for exporting their product across the country and the world. They are expecting and have been approved to produce four million tonnes annually according to their website texaslng.com. The company is planning to make its final decision on the location by the end of year, though the vote by the PI-ISD is one of the factors they are waiting on to reach said decision.
Citizens who are against the company building and producing liquified natural gas in the area have blocked the tax abatement before. In 2016 the PI-ISD board heard Texas LNG’s original tax abatement application and after a large outreach by community members, led by the group Save RGV, decided not to grant the special abatement. This was one of the first times the Section 313 application was denied in Texas.
According to the school board, it came down to two things. One was the community outcry against it. The other was as then President Mickey Furcron told the Texas Observer, “He didn’t relish the thought of hearing an environmental horror story every time he opened a new board meeting.”
This denial did not stop the company from moving forward with its plan to build in the area. Continuing on with their 625+ acre site they expect to begin shipping liquified natural gas by 2025. An application from Rio Grande LNG was rejected for even being considered by the PI-ISD as well.
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