The Rush
to Drain Lake Travis...
A WATER PLAN DRIVEN BY GREED, NOT NEED
LCRA currently allows cities to “speak for” and reserve water they might need in the future—giving fast-growing cities an incentive to buy more water than they actually use. For example, Cedar Park has 150% more water reserved than it actually uses. Leander has 750% of what they use reserved.
The taxpayers foot the bill. Ratepayers pay half the cost per gallon for unused water as they do for water used. (Leander is reserving about 20,000 AFY at a cost of $63 per AF. That’s $1,260,000 that the taxpayers and water users of Leander will have to pay annually.) At the same time, we’re inflating the demand for our already shrinking water supply. Round Rock is paying over $2 million per year in surcharge and reservation fees.
Plenty of other water sources exist for these thirsty Williamson County cities—sources eager to sell their water.
“No one is objecting to Round Rock, Leander and Cedar Park attempting to meet their future water needs, but backroom negotiations to drain Lake Travis and devastate Volente and Trails End are not the way to do it,” explains Volente resident Mattie Adams.
The entire state is moving toward regional water planning, while these three cities have opted for a me-first, stealth process.
A SECRET PLOT TO TARGET VOLENTE
The cities of Round Rock, Cedar Park,
and Leander (together as the Brushy Creek Regional Utility
Authority, "BCRUA") intend to use eminent domain powers to condemn
and clear cut a residential neighborhood park in the
heart of the small Village of Volente. The three
cities plan to replace Volente’s parkland, dedicated
to residents in 1939, with an industrial facility that
includes a 44-foot diameter shaft, 200 feet deep, and
2 ½ stories of mechanical equipment and loud engines.
The problem is that they forgot to ask
the Village
of Volente.
Despite many years of secret
planning for this industrial project by Williamson
County cities, the Village of Volente and its City
Council only learned about it last February when drilling
crews showed up in the community to evaluate sites. Travis
County Commissioner Gerald Daugherty was completely
surprised to hear of the project, as well as our state
legislators.
The site targeted for industrial use, is directly adjacent
to family homes in the heart of the Village of Volente. Additionally,
BCRUA plans to transport water
drained from Lake Travis through the Village of Volente
using a large open-trench pipeline system without regard
for the impact such facilities will have on the community. Current
plans show that BCRUA intends
to clear an entire platted roadway, plus condemn additional
private residential land to install and service a 84” open-trench
water transmission pipe.
Obviously this huge construction
project, coupled with a scheme to pump 141 million gallons
of lake water per day through our neighborhoods, will
be extremely disruptive to the Volente and Trails End
communities.
BCRUA is currently "re-evaluating the proposed Volente site." BCRUA just doesn’t get it. They are evaluating other sites for their intake. Going deeper in Lake Travis is not the answer. When the lake goes empty, it is empty. A deeper intake will not help. Having only one water source for Cedar Park and Leander is suicide. Going underground is their answer. Their corporation and their water-sharing infrastructure will work. They are just going after the wrong water.
A SHRINKING LAKE
In the past, LCRA could only supply Travis County and the Colorado River Watershed with water from Lake Travis. In the 1980’s, LCRA bent the “Travis County only” rule by selling Cedar Park water. (A very small piece of land in Cedar Park touches Lake Travis and is in Travis County. Cedar Park erected their water treatment plant on the tiny land parcel and floated their intakes in Lake Travis.) Leander soon followed for the same twisted reason. In order to correct this “bending of the law”, the Texas Legislature, under the guidance of Mike Krusee, legitimized Cedar Park and Leander in 1997 and 1999. In 2001, the Legislature amended the LCRA Enabling Act allowing LCRA to enter into long-term water contracts outside its service area. The Legislature did the easy thing and turned everything over to LCRA.
(click here
to view the changes to the LCRA Enabling Act.)(Section 222.029 and Sec 222.030 pages 23 to 29)
As a result, LCRA has interpreted the amendment to mean it is mandated to sell water to anyone that asks in the counties that touch Travis County. And sell it is! If this practice continues, lake levels will go down. Lake Travis could go empty in a drought.
During the 2006 drought, LCRA General Manager Joe Beal commented, “When we have the maximum use and we have a critical drought that lake is going to go empty the night before it rains. I mean empty. If the lake going empty is going to have an impact on you, you better plan for it. It could be happening this year.”
Why is LCRA only interested in selling water with no regard for the beauty and economic interests on Lake Travis? LCRA General Manager Joe Beal commented that LCRA was “not created to maximize the recreational interest or the economic interests on those Highland Lakes. That’s not why LCRA was created.”
The State of Texas owns the water in streams, rivers and lakes. In 1934, the State created LCRA to manage the water in the Lower Colorado River for “beneficial purposes”. Purpose #1 was municipal use. Purpose #2 was industrial use. Other uses were ranked below these. Perhaps Lake Travis has evolved into more than a reservoir for flood control, electricity and water. It is now an essential and integral part of Central Texas. The benefit of Lake Travis, and the whole Highland Lakes system, has become far more valuable than merely "municipal and industrial use".
Lake Travis is full now, but we all remember last summer. We know how fast Texas weather can change. What if the 2 proposed deep water intakes had been sucking last summer? Lake Travis fell almost a foot a week in summer, 2006. With the water LCRA has promised, it could fall over 3 feet a week in the next drought.
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WHO PAYS THE PRICE?
Aside from concerns expressed by Volente
residents over the condemnation and degradation of their
neighborhood, who is really paying for Central Texas’ rising
water demands? The taxpayers, of course.
The proposed BCRUA pipeline will cost $330 million (at current estimates). Who pays that cost? The cities are asking for state supported funds. They want all of Texas to pay for their greed and destruction!
Round Rock, Cedar Park and Leander have less expensive, more efficient options for sourcing water. Instead of contracting with suppliers who pump water from the Carrizo-Wilcox and Simsboro Aquifers, the city councils of Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock plan to charge taxpayers for the cost of pumping water out of Travis County and the Colorado River watershed and transporting it many miles for use in Central Williamson County and the Brazos River watershed.
No responsible city government should rely on a single source to provide drinking water. Having only one water source is treacherous for any city. When lake levels go down, the cities should use ground water. Going deeper into the lake is not the answer. All growing cities should have 4 components in their water growth plans: surface water, ground water, conservation, and reuse.
WHERE ARE THE CITY WASTEWATER REUSE PROGRAMS?
Cedar Park’s reuse program consists of only one golf course, Avery Ranch. All the other reuse programs are explained by words like “analyze the potential”, “future use”, “future”. One golf course using treated wastewater, yet they are asking taxpayers to pay $330,000,000 for more water! Why don’t they spend a little money on reusing what they have on irrigation and cooling before they spend millions to take more from Lake Travis? (Click
here for the report) (Sec 18.11.012)
We could not find even one reuse program for Leander. Their conservation program consists of 4” of topsoil in new home construction and prohibiting sprinkler systems in small areas, less than 10 ft wide.
Round Rock supplied Forest Creek Golf Club with treated wastewater for irrigation in 1998. It waited almost 9 years before it decided to put in a 3-phase plan. In 2007 it plans for treated waste-water to be used to irrigate the Old Settlers Park area. Phase II is Stony Point High School. Phase III is other points in northeast Round Rock. (Click
here to go to Water Re-Use in Round Rock)
The City of Austin currently has 19 miles of transmission main that provide 2 industrial users in the Central System, plus 2 golf courses and 2 industrial users in the South System with reuse water. Davenport, Onion Creek and Balcones/Pickfair water their golf courses with treated effluent. The
recent COA/LCRA Settlement Agreement will allow Austin
to use some of its waste water to cool 2 power plants
below Longhorn Dam.
(Click
here for the 2006 report by Chris Lippe, then Director
of the COA’s Water
Utility)
The University of Texas, Austin-Bergstrom Airport and Samsung all want to use treated wastewater, but the City has not extended lines to their properties. Finally the City of Austin has realized the value of re-using water. It has designated several million dollars to construct an infrastructure to use treated wastewater to a maximum capacity. During Chris Lippe's management of COA's Water Utility, Austin saw little need for such an expense.
Lakeway MUD is currently selling all its treated wastewater to irrigate golf courses, medians, condo common areas, city landscaped areas and church lawns.
Why can’t the three cities of the BCRUA do what Lakeway is doing and what Austin plans to do in the immediate future? Why are they in such a hurry to take more water from Lake Travis before they spend a little on infrastructure to get all their treated wastewater to irrigation and cooling?
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