State and city leaders officially celebrate Packery Channel Project completion

KIII ABC 3 News Corpus Christi

Lidia Herrera | April 3, 2024

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — State and city leaders celebrated the completion of the Packery Channel Restoration Project with a unique cutting of a fishing net Wednesday afternoon.

“Today as we celebrate this milestone, we’re not just looking back at what we’ve achieved but also setting the stage for ongoing efforts to positive transformation and environmental stewardship,” Mayor Paulette Guajardo said.

In 2017, Hurricane Harvey damaged the channel and the city vowed to restore it. The channel is important because it connects the Corpus Christi Bay to the Gulf of Mexico and the Island Canal Systems.

The Packery Channel Restoration Project began in January 2022 with a budget of $15 million, $13 million came from the federal government and the rest was $1.5 million from local funds.

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“We feel really excited this is a great project for the city, the island and to the community,” City Manager Peter Zanoni said. “The restoration to the Packery Channel means economic development, environmental stewardship and it means community. And that is what it symbolizes today.”

U.S. Rep. Michael Cloud said he and other officials were happy to help the city of Corpus Christi receive federal funding.

“The city had applied for a relief fund for this and it sort of got hung up in the bureaucracy for a while, so we were able to step in, senators helped out with that as well. Senator Cornyn, Senator Cruz in making sure that we were able to get the federal dollars we need to bring this project into fruition,” Cloud said.

The project addressed some major repairs to structures damaged by previous storms. Some repairs consist of shoreline protection, storm drains, sidewalks and more.

“That is a massive undertaking it is a truck load after truck load and barge load after barge load of rock that was brought in from Kentucky that you can see was place here to secure the banks up,” Zanoni said.

The city manager said the construction method used in this project is more durable to sustain another storm from damaging the channel.

“We’re confident in this stepped-up construction method that’s used here today,” he said.