Black residents in Corpus Christi file a civil rights complaint to stop Texas’ first desalination plant

Adam Carrington, pastor at Brooks AME Worship Center, said the city is “sacrificing Hillcrest yet again to support industry’s need.” (Credit: Dylan Baddour/Inside Climate News)

The Hillcrest neighborhood in Corpus Christi started out as an upscale all-white community in the heart of the city. But after oil was discovered nearby in 1930, a growing refinery sector on Hillcrest’s edge drove many residents to seek homes elsewhere. So in 1944, Corpus Christi recommended Hillcrest be opened to Black people.

In the following decades, refinery flares and smoke stacks cropped up around the neighborhood. An interstate highway cut it off from the rest of the city, and it became host to Corpus Christi’s sewage treatment plant.