What’s happening?
Bastrop City Manager Sylvia Carrillo-Trevino stressed that wastewater needs are “growing exponentially.”
“An expansion to the newly opened 2-[million gallons per day] plant is already needed, with the expected expansion needing to be online within the next 18-24 months,” she said in a staff report. “Additionally, the newly opened plant already needs retrofitting to meet the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality phosphorus level readings and discharge into the Colorado River requirements.”
How we got here
Officials hoped the original project development agreement contemplated for the construction of a 4 MGD facility would bring the wastewater treatment capacity at 384 TX-304 in Bastrop to 6 MGD. However, TCEQ only permitted the city for a 2 MGD expansion of Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 3.
“Our permit is not up to 6 MGD yet, so we don’t want to be in breach,” Carrillo-Trevino said during a Bastrop City Council meeting Aug. 12. “I don’t want somebody to review the contract and say, ‘Hey, you have up to 4 MGD, and you’re only building 2 MGD.’”
What’s next?
Although Bastrop City Council was slated to vote on whether to approve the amended project development agreement, Mayor Pro Tem John Kirkland requested that the item be tabled until the next regular meeting Aug. 26, after expressing concerns about unnecessary costs when another expansion is needed.
“The reason why I care about this is that next calendar year, if all development came online, we would be at 150% [capacity] at our current plant,” he said. “That means that the second this new plant is built, at least 50% of it would be fully utilized on the day that it opened. So we would be in this little wheel of building a 2 MGD plant and then [getting] a permit to build another 2 MGD plant. I'm just suggesting that there is a more cost-efficient way to plan and execute.”
Something to note
Carrillo-Trevino noted that Wastewater Treatment Plant No. 4 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
