What we know
Georgetown City Council members unanimously approved authorizing City Manager David Morgan to sign the GateHouse Water termination during a May 27 meeting, with council members Shawn Hood and Ben Stewart absent.
“The city and Gatehouse mutually agreed that [GateHouse] did not have a feasible financial and operational plan to deliver the water under the conditions of the contract,” a city official said in an email to Community Impact. “The city is looking for ways to leverage our financing and engineering resources to buy out [GateHouse's] assets and develop the project.”
Assets could include wells, groundwater leases and production or transportation permits, the official said.
To date, the city has not paid GateHouse Water any money, and no fees are associated with the termination, according to the city’s website.
How we got here
During a special-called meeting Dec. 30, council members approved a 30-year agreement with GateHouse Water to purchase 16.5 million gallons per day of groundwater from the Simsboro Aquifer in Lee County.
City Council was expected to give final approval to the GateHouse contract by this summer, Community Impact previously reported.
Looking ahead
City officials will continue to pursue additional long-term water supply agreements, including:
- An agreement with EPCOR to build an 80-mile pipeline from the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in Robertson County to bring 32-62.5 mgd of treated groundwater to Georgetown by 2030.
- An agreement with Recharge Water to assess the cost of a phased delivery of up to 31 mgd per year of groundwater from the Simsboro Aquifer.
