Now LCRA is attempting to divest themselves of their water and wastewater sales, but only after the rest of us have had to pay for the losses. Some of the cities serviced are "fighting" the sales and attempting to purchase their systems at a ridiculously reduced rate.  This will only cost the firm water users to pay more and delay any hope of another reservoir in the lower basin.  We are paying for LCRA mistakes.  Let's not also pay for the "retail sales" cities' "greed"!

LCRA was established to wholesale raw water from the Lower Colorado River Basin.  In the 1992, LCRA bought their first water and wastewater systems.  In 1994, it bought the Uplands that expanded their retail operation ten-fold in Western Travis and Hays Counties.  It later bought the bankrupt Lometa Water System expanding into Lampasas, San Saba, Mills and Burnet Counties.  Not only was LCRA in the retail business, but it was also selling water to parts of Hays and Lampasas Counties not in the LCRA service area.  It ran its water lines wherever developers wanted to develop.  (The retail operations into Hays County led the City of Austin to prohibit any of their $100 million they paid LCRA to be used in Hays County.)

The LCRA Board finally realized the retail business was costing them a lot of money and they did not have legislation to allow it?  Being legal never stopped LCRA before, especially when they sold water to Williamson County under the guise of part of Cedar Park and Leander being in Travis County.

Why did LCRA go into debt millions, plus using the $100 million from the City of Austin, to enter something they were not authorized to do? According to Asher Price in an article in the Austin American Statesman on 3/2/08, "Deregulation of the electric power industry was all the rage in the 1990's, and the LCRA feared that investor-owned utilities would steal its wholesale electric customers" Its water division was not as large as the electric side. Entering retail sales might make the water division stronger. It only created millions in debt.