FREEPORT – Kisuma, the company set to build a magnesium plant in Freeport, said it will bring money and jobs to the area, but across the waterway, on Surfside Beach, there are concerns it could cheapen the aesthetics and lower revenue for business owners.
“We had several concerns,” said Surfside Beach Mayor, Gregg Bisso.
He’s speaking about the potential construction of a new plant that would extract magnesium from the saltwater in the intercostal waterway for industrial and medicinal use. Less concerned about what the plant will produce, Bisso is worried about how it will affect the economy in this coastal town.
“We have several businesses, and it’s tourists, it’s boat traffic, it’s things like that, and some of these people aren’t going to want to come down here and look at a plant on the intercostal,” Bisso said.
“It’ll definitely change the whole feel of the island down here,” said Business Manager of Surfside Marina, Donna Rickard, who also lives nearby. “We just were granted by the State of Texas a $1.5 million grant in order to come in and make more transient dockage and build up this intercostal area down here.”
While Rickard believes the plant would quash the development efforts and make the area unattractive, Marlus Ferretti, the Chief Operating Officer for Kisuma, said the company hoping to build the plant sent renderings of what the plant could look like and believes it would be an asset to the area.
“We are the best neighbor they could have to preserve the intercostal in the most healthy way,” Ferretti said.
Ferretti adds that the plant would bring between one and one and a half million dollars in annual water utility revenue to the City of Freeport, and also jobs, which would help the economy on both sides of the waterway.
There are concerns the plant could affect wildlife in the water. Ferretti said the process they use is completely safe and compliant with environmental regulations.
So far, the City of Freeport has not given the green light for the plant to be built.
Council members are expected to revisit the matter at their next meeting on Aug. 15.