Pflugerville Community Development Corp. approved an incentive agreement Sept. 25 to help bring industrial firm LifeLast Inc. to Pflugerville and with it about 15 jobs.

LifeLast manufactures polyurethane coatings for pipes, the treatment of which prevents corrosion. PCDC Executive Director Floyd Akers said the company is moving to Texas to be closer to the demand for its product.

Akers said the company would bring and hire 15 people and use about 24,000 square feet of space at the 130 Commerce Center—a business park located at Pecan Street and SH 130.

The PCDC is offering LifeLast $3,500 per employee, paying the company's first six months of rent and giving the company $25,000 to offset relocation costs, Akers said.

Akers said LifeLast is signing a seven-year lease and has an average annual salary exceeding $70,000. Costs of the PCDC's incentive agreement with LifeLast are capped at $155,720, Akers said.

Akers said about five or six of the employees would relocate from the firm's current headquarters in Vancouver, Washington, and other employees would be hired locally.

Akers said the company has coated the inside of some pipes for the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority.

"Had the inside of our pipes at the water plant been coated with this material they probably wouldn't have busted a leak," Akers said, referring to the Lake Pflugerville Pump Station.

In early May city workers found water leaking at the Lake Pflugerville Pump Station located below the dam. Three pump cans, which resemble large pipes leading into the station and house vertical pumps, were riddled with holes because of corrosion. The pipes had been in service for about nine years, but they should normally last a minimum of 20–25 years, an engineer told City Council in May.

The city is still in the process of fixing the pipes, and the cost of the pipe failure has topped $750,000.