Texas Desal Association: Hookups and Conflicts for CCW’s Drew Molly?
By Julia Strong
Desalination is a dirty word in the Coastal Bend, and everyone knows it. As drought restrictions tighten on Corpus Christi residents and elected officials and city staff refuse to curtail water usage by corporations, it is time to understand the city’s entanglement with the Texas Desalination (Desal) Association.
Who is on the Board of Directors for the association? It has a few notable people, including Corpus Christi Water’s own Andrew “Drew” Molly. Then we have Mike Pankratz, senior operations consultant at GHD. To round out the local affiliations is Josh Tebbe, business development manager who works in project delivery methods for water utilities at Kiewit. Do you see any conflicts of interests?
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According to the website, Texas Desalination Association was founded in 2011. The address is in Florida, not Texas. However, according to the IRS, the group has filed 990 forms for years 2015-2021. Since the 990s are not made available on the website, the association is legally required to provide the 990s upon request. Failure to provide those comes with federal penalties.
While researching this article, the group was asked to provide 990s for the last two years, 2023-2024. Kyle Frazier, executive director of the Texas Desalination Association, refused to provide them.
Is it a conflict of interest for Molly to sit on the executive board and take part in the legislative committee at the Texas Desalination Association while he is chief operating officer (COO) of Corpus Christi Water? In addition, he has pressured Corpus Christi’s city council to vote in favor of building a desalination plant without first conducting the correct modeling to ensure the plant would not kill the bay.
Let’s examine further: Molly was the lead person who scored desalination contractors for the city of Corpus Christi, and the Kiewit proposal was the most expensive of the three proposals. Regardless, Kiewit won the contract because of its “almost perfect” score during the interview. Molly sits on the Texas Desalination Association board with Tebbe from Kiewit and Pankratz from GHD, who is the contractor for the project’s modeling.
At the very least, Molly should not have been involved with the scoring of proposals for a potential desalination plant in Corpus Christi. He also should not sit on the board of directors of an association that promotes desalination and connects contractors with interested parties.
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As COO of Corpus Christi Water, Molly is required to fill out a Report of Financial Information, which he did on March 28. On page 5, he lists that he is a board member of “Texas Desalination,” which is better known as the Texas Desalination Association or Texas Desal Association. On page 6, he checks the box “NO” claiming that he does not have “any business or personal relationships that might present a conflict of interest… which would affect the impartial performance of his or her duties of the City of Corpus Christi.”
His professional and personal relationships with Tebbe and Pankratz via the association’s board of directors could and likely did affect / skew the impartial performance of his city staff duties. On page 7, he signed that he solemnly swears the report is “in all things true and correct.”
But how? He checked the “NO” box on page 6.
Editor’s note: This story, and many of Julia Strong’s stories, are enhanced by public information requests and the Public Information Act in Texas. However, many correctly-filed public information requests are denied and sent to the Texas Attorney General for a second opinion. This slows the reporting and fact-checking process.
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