“It is a niche expertise, with only a handful of engineers in the country having worked or designed in this area,” Bastrop City Manager Sylvia Carrillo-Trevino said in a Sept. 23 staff report. “In the city’s current [roster], there are no engineers who have worked through this type of technology.”
What we know
Carrillo-Trevino noted that Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 4, an expansion of Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 3, would do the following:
- Reuse the effluent created at the plant
- Generate a new revenue source for the effluent and solids created
- Provide a quicker build time since many parts are prebuilt off-site
- Have a smaller footprint
- Require a lower overall maintenance cost than Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 3
Officials have repeatedly stressed that wastewater needs are “growing exponentially.”
“Next calendar year, if all development came online, we would be at 150% [capacity] at our current plant,” Mayor Pro Tem John Kirkland said during an Aug. 12 meeting.
During her State of the City address, Carrillo-Trevino highlighted that Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 3 already needs retrofitting to meet the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality phosphorus level readings and discharge into the Colorado River requirements.
“Is that bad planning? I don't know, but shame on the state for not letting us know something's coming down the pipe so that we can at least plan for it as we're in the planning stages,” she said.
An additional filtration system will be installed at Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 4 to prevent future retrofitting.
“My goal is that the Colorado River does not know the city of Bastrop is here because we are such good environmental stewards of how we treat water and wastewater,” Carrillo-Trevino said.
The outlook
Carrillo-Trevino emphasized how Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 4 will need to come online within the next 18-24 months.
