Dear Mayor and Council Members:
As elected officials you have a responsibility to ensure a reliable, cost-effective water supply. Why aren't you doing it? Be fiscally responsible, cost-estimate a regional aquifer plan for the safety and economic health of your residents.
I urge you to reconsider your city's support and participation in the BCRUA deep-water intake project for the following reasons:
- Leander and Cedar Park only cost-estimated this BCRUA project going deeper into Lake Travis. Reliable water has to be available 100% of the time. At the new intake depth, 50-75% of your water supply could be curtailed. The Simsboro Aquifer, in your own basin is drought-proof and prolific. This aquifer would provide your cities conjunctive use in a drought and a long-range water supply that you need. Aquifer water is available just east of Round Rock. No cost estimate of a regional aquifer plan has been done.
- The 2007 State Plan used a 1999 project cost of $202M, now it's over $417M and climbing. Engineering firms should not be allowed to cost estimate projects that their firms will profit on.
- No economic or environmental studies are planned on the effects of the deep-water intakes. Lake Travis is the single, most important economic and environmental driver of Central Texas.
- The precedent setting intake is near the bottom of Lake Travis, pulling water from 70' lower than the drought level of 2006. What's left of Lake Travis at 575msl and Lake Buchanan at 960msl? What are the intake levels of other water supply holders?
- Can Leander afford this project? It has 47% of the project cost but only 12% of the population. Leander water rates are already twice the state average and will increase 21% with projected growth over the next three years, and 43% with lower than projected growth. Leander just doubled the capacity of its existing treatment plant. Is this a water need or greed? With the economic slowdown, how many developers and builders have pulled out of your cities?
- The State funding for the project has no bond insurance or joint liability. If one city defaults, the others are not responsible or liable. Has default been explained to the residents of Leander? Why is the Texas Water Development Board allowing this? Your district's Senator Ogden, Chair of the Senate Finance Committee, appropriated $365M to the TWDB in 2007. Three months later your cities requested $358M in their funding application.
Stop this political water grab and cost estimate an aquifer plan. Spending over $400M to go deeper into an over-stressed and over-promised, drought-prone Lake Travis for a single source of "reliable" water is not the answer. Get off the bottom of Lake Travis! The Colorado Basin's safety and economic health also requires your due diligence.
Sincerely,
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