The City of Austin and LCRA signed a Settlement Agreement on June 16, 2007. The Agreement settled several disputes the two entities were having. The document was basically a �swan song� for both Austin City Manager Toby Futrell and LCRA General Manager Joe Beal. Both announced their resignation after signing.

How high will this bathtub ring get in the next drought?

Points of the Agreement:

1. It settles the Bed and Banks dispute. Austin has been discharging 100,000 AFY of treated wastewater below Longhorn Dam. It then picks up the water and uses it to cool their power plants downstream. LCRA wanted Austin to pay for the water usage for their power plants or pipe the treated wastewater to them. This allows Austin to use the water a second time at no charge.
   
   This is precedent setting. Austin basically still owns the water and is using the Colorado River to transport it. Other cities release their treated wastewater into the Upper Colorado River . Will they now have the ability to use it again? If these other cities choose to claim the water as their own, how much of the water that enters Lake Travis would actually be available for LCRA to sell?
    
2. The Garwood Diversion point controversy is settled. Garwood is a small town in the lower basin. It is the most senior municipal water right (1900) on the Lower Colorado �senior to both Austin (1913) and LCRA (1934). LCRA purchased 133,000 AFY of this right and wanted it to be moved to Lake Travis so LCRA could have more �water� to sell on paper. Austin did not want the Garwood rights diversion point moved to Lake Travis because this senior right would be above the Austin diversion points on the river. With this agreement, Austin has agreed to allow LCRA to ask the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) to move this diversion point to Lake Travis.
   
   The request is currently in technical review at TECQ. Due to additional water entering the Colorado River from numerous streams below Longhorn Dam, the water right is at 133,000 AFY if it is downstream. LCRA estimates that TCEQ will approve about 60,000 AFY when the diversion point is moved up to Lake Travis.  With much of the current 25% projected water needs of our basin in Matagorda County, how prudent is moving the Garwood Right?
   
   The Leander Water Contract, increasing Leander's water from 6,400 AFY to 24,000 AFY, is tied to the Garwood Water Rights several times in the contract.  With the Leander Permit being contested, who should actually have the right--the lower basin or the inter-basin transfer?
    
3. Austin had 325,000 AFY in the disputed 1999 agreement with LCRA. This agreement settles the dispute and agrees that Austin and LCRA will together search for an additional 250,000 AFY of water for Austin sometime in the future.
   
   Austin's rights are senior to LCRA's, so the agreement allows Austin the first 150,000 AFY at no charge and charges on the rest, with no reservation fees, after Austin uses 201,000 AFY two years in a row. LCRA has set aside about 138,000 AFY as back-up firm water from Lake Travis to Austin's senior water rights. If the City of Austin has a deep water intake in Lake Travis , how can this water remain "back-up"? Where is this agreement?
    
4. The Agreement basically prohibits Austin from seeking any other sources of water until it reaches the trigger point of 201,000 AFY two years in a row. This is not an unusual request since Austin paid $100 million up front to be able to use water free of charge until it reaches the trigger point. ( Austin prohibited LCRA from using any of this money in Hays County retail operations.)
   
   Austin Mayor Will Wynn previously estimated that Austin will not reach the trigger point until 2020. Now Austin's conservation and reuse projects might delay that trigger point until 2040 or later!  What a deal Austin made!  $100 million for indefinite use of water free of charge!