PORT ARANSAS — Cathy Fulton can’t forget how quickly Hurricane Harvey came barreling into this barrier island, leaving residents little time to do anything but board up what they could, grab a few things and flee. Her home of nine years was destroyed by winds of up to 130 mph and tide surges that pounded beaches and flooded the island in more than six feet of water.

She shudders to think how this beach community would have suffered if storage tanks holding million barrels of oil were also in a storm’s path.

“I just can’t imagine how much worse things would have been,” she said. “There was no time, there was not time really for anybody to secure much of anything.”

Fulton, 54, is among the members of a group recently formed to oppose a plan by the Port of Corpus Christi to build a $500 million crude oil export terminal on Harbor Island, bringing the world’s largest oil tankers and a tank farm just 1,000 feet across Aransas Pass from this city of about 4,000. With gutted hotels along the beach along the Gulf of Mexico and collapsed buildings in town as reminders of their vulnerability, residents here say they can’t take the risk of something going wrong at an operation through which millions of barrels of crude oil would pass each day.

The opposition group, the Port Aransas Conservancy, is gearing up for a fight that has implications not only for Port Aransas and the Port of Corpus Christi, but also the energy industry and economy. With the flood of crude produced in the Permian Basin and other shale plays, Texas is emerging as one of the world’s biggest oil exporters and the Port of Corpus Christi as the hub for those exports, which bring billions of dollars into the state.

“This nation has an opportunity to become a net exporter of its energy production and turn the tide in balancing the trade,” said Sean Strawbridge, CEO of the Port of Corpus Christi.

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The Harbor Island terminal is part of a plan to accommodate the world’s largest oil tankers and double the amount of crude exported from the port to about 600,000 barrels a day from about 300,000. The project would dredge the ship channel and build a dock to handle ships called Very Large Crude Carriers, or VLCCs, which stretch 1,200 feet — longer than the Navy’s Nimitz-class aircraft carriers — and carry up to 2 million barrels of oil.

The development, proposed for 254 acres the port owns on Harbor Island, would include a terminal that could load up to 285,000 barrels of crude a day and a tank farm holding up to 5 million barrels. Eventually, the complex could expand to accommodate two VLCCs, store up to 20 million barrels and load up to 1.2 million barrels a day.

Corpus Christi isn’t the only area being eyed for VLCC capabilities. Enterprise Product Partners said recently that it plans to build a new export terminal 80 miles offshore from the entrance to the Houston Ship Channel,

VLCCs can save companies as much as 75 cents a barrel, or roughly $1.5 million per load, making both U.S. crude and the port more competitive in the global economy. Currently, Strawbridge said, smaller tankers cruise offshore to fill big tankers, increasing the risk of spills and environmental damage.

“From our standpoint,” Strawbridge said, “having it here gives us much better oversight and much better safety measures and much less opportunity for some sort of accident to occur, in our opinion.”

The Port unveiled its plan at a meeting on May 15, and within weeks residents had organized the opposition group. In addition to fears of catastrophes caused by hurricanes, residents worry about increases in ship traffic, which creates waves and damages piers, beaches and protective bulkheads and seawalls.

A 2016 study commissioned by the city of Port Aransas found that waves from a passing tanker destroyed a fishing pier on the southwest side of town in 2008 and damaged the rebuilt pier in 2010. The waves from passing ships — which were 400 feet shorter and had a much shallower draft — also topped a seawall, posing dangers to people walking nearby, according to the study.

On a sunny, hot summer day dozens of cars lined up for free ferries to Harbor Island. Tourists on an outdoor patio overlooking Port Aransas’ harbor snacked on burgers and fries, cooled by the steady ocean breeze. A pirate boat pulled up, its actors giving the customers some final instructions in pirate vernacular.

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Visitors flock to Port Aransas to lie — or drive — on its beaches of fine sand, watch the endangered whooping crane and other migratory birds, or fish in the coves on the backside of the island. Conservancy members worry that the intense development of Harbor Island would damage the area’s natural beauty and character and hurt tourism, on which the local economy depends.

John Donovan, 75, has lived in Texas for 12 years and bought a vacation home in Port Aransas last summer. Donovan, one of the founders of the Port Aransas Conservancy, said he was attracted to the beaches, the pace of life and the people who “could not be friendlier.”

But, said Donovan, the VLCCs would tower over the town and scare away tourists. While he understands the need for economic development, Donovan said it’s just as important to focus on “protecting the environment and the quality of life in Port Aransas.”

“It’s just a really cool town,” said Donovan, originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. “It’s like Santa Cruz 30 years ago.”

Not everyone agrees the export terminal would drive away tourists. In fact, said Port Aransas Mayor Charles Bujan, the huge oil tankers might attract more. Last year, he noted, the VLCC Euronav Anne cruised by the city as part of a test run to Occidental Petroleum’s Ingleside oil export terminal around eight miles southwest of Port Aransas, and about 1,000 people flocked to the jetty to watch.

Bujan said he expects plenty of opposition to Port of Corpus Christi’s development, but added the city can’t do much to stop it since the port owns that land and it’s zoned industrial.

“We can raise issues just like the folks that are against it can raise the issues,” Bujan said. “But as far as changing their zoning and taking away another one of their property rights, we’d lose every day in court.”

The project appears a long way off. The port will take the next year to study the economics, feasibility and environmental impact before deciding how to move ahead. It also will face reviews by the Army Corps of Engineers, which must approve the dredging, and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which must grant an operating permit, according to port officials.

Fulton, who has lived in Port Aransas since 2009, said if the oil export terminal came, she would leave.

“After the storm is when a lot of the people woke up to the reality of how our resources are becoming more limited, and by that I’m talking the environmental, birding, all of these things that people come here for,” she said. “Is this (crude oil export terminal) what somebody wants to come down here and see?”

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rdruzin@express-news.net | Twitter: @druz_journo