City Council approves over $6 million for unnecessary water treatment plant work
Late Thursday night, the Austin City Council approved two items by a 6-1 vote, totaling $6.4 million, for work on the proposed Water Treatment Plant 4 near Lake Travis. Save Our Springs Alliance, Austin Sierra Club, Clean Water Action, and Environment Texas all asked the Council to save the $6.4 million and focus on water conservation. Council Member Laura Morrison voted against the unnecessary spending (thanks, Laura!).
The main proponents of the spending? The chamber of commerce and the contractors who are eager for the full $500 million the Water Utility wants to shower on them, while ratepayers fork over more than a billion dollars when the interest is factored in. The $6.4 million goes toward a construction manager and expanding a road leading to the treatment plant site, at 620 and Bullick Hollow Road.
Council Members noted that this spending does not commit the City to the full construction project. That "point of no return" is now claimed to be October, which means we don't have long to convince our elected officials to focus on reducing demand for water rather than increasing treatment supply (on a lake that is drying up). All while saving ratepayers a cool billion dollars.
To put the $6.4 million in context, the entire proposed budget for water conservation is $6.68 million! Imagine how much water we could save and how much smarter and more efficient with water we could be if Council had allocated that $6.4 million to the water conservation budget instead of flushing money down the drain.
$6 million can buy thousands of low flush toilets for restaurants, schools, offices, and other businesses.
With an extra $6 million, the city could spread the watering schedule across town and encourage calls to 311 to report water waste.
With an additional $6 million, we could start a Pecan Street Project for water.
But instead the $6 million is going to a road builder and an engineering firm.
The bigger picture includes the need to shift the City of Austin's attitude, practice, and philosophy regarding water from water seller and water mover to water steward. The Austin Water Utility is stuck in a 20th century (some might say 19th century) approach of "big pipes." You stick a big pipe in a lake, push the water through more big pipes to a big treatment plant, treat it, send it out in big pipes across town. Then all the water used indoors goes into sewer pipes that lead to cross-town interceptor pipes on to the wastewater treatment plant. This approach is enormously energy-intensive and prone to leaks and overflows.
A 21st century approach includes collecting rainwater and using it where it is collected; re-using indoor graywater (bathtub water and the like) for toilet water and outdoor watering; using stormwater from parking lots to irrigate medians and landscaping, and more.
- Colin Clark's blog
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Comments
In addition to the BCRUA project beginning soon.
There is another treatment plant and deep water intake line planned to begin construction before the end of the year for the cities of Roundrock, Leander and Cedar Park out of Lake Travis. To my knowledge, none of these cities have water conservation programs in place. The water will be sucked out of Lake Travis via the 7.5 ft in diameter pipeline 'straw' and pumped (massive amounts of energy needed to perform that task)to a water treatment plant in Cedar Park.
I have been trying to keep up with the struggles that the residents of the Village of Volente and my own neighbors in the Trails End neighborhood have been contending with, but it has been difficult to keep up momentum with a struggle spanning several years.
Among numerous other issues, is the condition of the lake. I would be glad to send to you pictures of the horrific state of the lake right now. I could only imaging what shape the lake (and other jurisdictions with water intake lines in lake Travis)will be looking like if the BCRUA AND the water treatment plant 4 project come on-line. I wonder how many additional plans for the water of 'Reservoir' Travis there are out there! Is there no cap?
I would also like to mention that this is the first year in the twenty years that I know of that my well has run dry. Although I live right by the lake, I know that none of this water will benefit me or my neighbors. I feel sorry for the lakefront owners who pay the taxes of lakefront property, but are looking at grasses now where the water used to be.
City Council approves unnecessary water tmt work
Thank you Colin Clark, all the organizations, citizens, and Laura Morrison for working against this. Here's another area where conservation could be increased.
Some Homeowner Associations REQUIRE residents to have St. Augustine lawns. This lawn requires ghastly amounts of water to maintain. Some HOAs do not allow homeowners to choose more drought-tolerant lawns, or lawn-free xeric landscapes. This is an enormous waste of water.
Why not make it illegal for HOAs to REQUIRE residents to have water-hogging lawns?
Thanks,
Rosina Newton
The Natural Gardener
The 500 Million
Would buy every house in Austin a 3000 gallon rainwater storage tank, that could also be used as an emergency water supply if the city utility ever ran out of water...
The Developers want it as they can't build more businesses and houses without addition capacity out on 620 and near the lake...
why is constant growth something we need?
It's more like a Billion dollars
Dear Melrise,
The total cost is pushing $1 BILLION when you include the interest. The water utility's cost estimate from late 2006 pegged total cost at $849 million. That was using a $283 million construction cost estimate. Now the construction cost is $508 million.
The utility says 80% of that $508 will be debt-financed with bonds. If you borrow $400 million, you end up paying around $800 million with interest. Add in the $108 million difference that is paid for with cash, and you're close to a billion.
Construction projects that cost $500 million upfront usually end up costing a lot more. In this one, the project involves drilling tunnels 2 miles through karst limestone - which means porous and often holding water. And the tunnels are something like 10 feet in diameter.
You can imagine the likelihood of cost over-runs, change orders, and general construction problems befalling a boondoggle of this sort.
So the odds are that if they ever start
Save Bull Creek
To build this water treatment plant, the City is planning to drill thru the Karst limestone that forms the headwaters of Bull Creek, which is flowing today in the worst drought ever. To build the massive number of pipes to ship the water out from the treatment plant.
why would we want to destroy these springs? Why the headwaters of Bull Creek??
and surely the EPA will not give us a permit to do so, thus wasting our six million dollars in engineering costs
.
SAVE BULL CREEK!!