The council heard updates on Phase 2 and Phase 2A of the long-term projects to improve operations and increase water capacity. Phase 2 and 2A are expected to be complete in 2027.
Two-minute impact
“The hallmark idea of the whole project has always been the deepwater intake, to improve drought sustainability from Lake Travis,” BCRUA General Manager Sam Roberts said.
Roberts noted that the localities participating in the regional partnership, Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock, met in 2006 to discuss how much water they want to receive at full build-out of the project. Leander ultimately wanted to be able to receive 50 million gallons per day from the system.
The full BCRUA system is expected to be complete between 2050 and 2060, which is when full capacity will be reached. Phase 2 and Phase 2A are expected to be complete around 2027, and will add 11.7 million gallons per day of capacity for Leander, bringing the city’s total capacity to 31.2 MGD once complete, said Aaron Archer, vice president of Walker Partners, which is overseeing the project.
Dig deeper
Phase 2 is largely driven by the need to reduce drought vulnerability, Archer said.
“These long recurring droughts that we keep having have rendered not only BCRUA’s floating intake but many other floating intakes on the lake inoperable. We needed to have a plan to move away from using the current floating intake,” he said.
Phase 2 is important to enable the system to reach full capacity, which will be 145 MGD, 62 MGD of which will be going to Leander, Archer said.
A major component of Phase 2 is a raw water intake deep in Lake Travis near the main Colorado River channel off the shoreline from the village of Volente.
The intake will send water through a tunnel deep underground to a remote pump station, which will then send the water across the lake through another deep tunnel where it will connect with an existing pipeline at the end of Trails End Road, Archer said.
The system will send water to the BCRUA water plant as well as plants specifically for Cedar Park and Leander.
Phase 2 is about halfway complete, but the contractors completing the work have fallen about 100 days behind, and they now are required to submit a recovery schedule for getting back on track, Archer said.
Phase 2 is expected to cost about $225 million, and about half of that has been paid to contractors already for the work they’ve done.
Also of note
Phase 2A will increase the capacity of the BCRUA water treatment plant to about 64 MGD, Archer said. The project will expand service to Round Rock and Leander, with Cedar Park forgoing increases until a later date.
Leander will receive about 52% of the increased water available, which translates to an 11.7 MGD increase for the city once the project is complete. The increase is expected to bring the amount of water received by Leander from the BCRUA to 31.2 MGD by 2027.
Construction and design costs for Phase 2A are expected to be around $120 million, and Leander is expected to pay about $62 million.
Quote of note
“I just want to thank you for staying on top of the contractors,” Mayor Christine DeLisle told Archer. “The delays are absolutely unacceptable, and so I appreciate you staying on top of them and asking for that recovery schedule.”
“This is such an important project to us,” she said.
