Nearly $6 billion in financial commitments will go toward starting construction of a liquefied natural gas terminal at the Port of Brownsville.

The company, NextDecade Corp., announced the investment in a Wednesday news release. They've been developing the Rio Grande LNG Project for years.

Daniel Silva, the head of Rio Grande Valley Partnership, discussed the anticipated benefits of this investment at the port.

“We're looking at the jobs that are being created, we're looking at the investment that's being made,” Silva said. “Really importantly, we're looking at the dredging of the port and what that's going to bring to the Port of Brownsville."

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The company is changing more than 900 acres to pipe in natural gas to the area. NextDecade facilities will supercool the gas into condensed liquid form and export the product overseas.

“We're going to start seeing companies — second and third tier processing companies or supply companies — that are looking to locate,” Silva said. “The number of jobs created is going to bring in a lot of infrastructure, it's going to bring in a lot of homes."

The company promises to limit its footprint on the environment by setting aside 4,000 acres for wildlife, and will implement a carbon capture system.

Opponents with Save RGV says the public will be impacted by pollution and barge traffic.

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"This is absolutely the worst thing that can happen to the Rio Grande Valley and eastern Cameron County,” Mary Angela Brach said. “It's going to be the largest liquid natural gas terminal in the U.S., and possibly the world."

NextDecade started moving soil late last year in previously undisturbed areas bordering the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge that caused the relocation of the Texas Tortoise.

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“For millennia, this has been completely undeveloped, pristine land,” Branch said. “It's not just salt flats and sand dunes as some people would like to think. There are many threatened and endangered federal and state species here."

NextDecade says thousands of construction jobs are coming. Three liquefaction trains will be built to start the process.

The city of Port Isabel filed a lawsuit on Monday that challenged the permit that the federal energy regulatory commission issued for this project. 

A decision on the lawsuit is pending.