A final agreement that locks in rates and serves as a formal mechanism for sharing water among Kyle, San Marcos and Buda was signed July 27 by representatives from each city.

Local growth has convinced those cities and the Canyon Regional Water Authority to team up to share water and create long-term water supply solutions.

The Hays Caldwell Public Utility Agency is a public entity with the sole purpose of developing long-term water supplies for San Marcos, Buda and Kyle. The organization is funded by the CRWA and the cities.

“Because we are working together on this item, we now have relationships all over the place on other issues,” Kyle City Council Member David Wilson said. “That gives us a huge advantage in relationships, and it’s really paid off for us.”

The HCPUA is in the process of designing a pipeline and pump station that will connect Kyle and Buda’s water systems. This will help Buda, the city with the most urgent water needs in the partnership. Before the water sharing agreement was finalized, projections indicated Buda faces a water shortage of 30,000 gallons of water a day beginning in 2017 if it is unable to secure an additional water source. The city’s shortage could climb to 950,000 gallons of water a day by 2023.

“If we hadn’t had the benefit of this successful partnership, we could have potentially been in some very dire straits,” Buda Water Specialist Brian Lillibridge said. “We definitely would have been facing supply shortages, and that comes with a lot of terrible implications for a community that’s growing as quickly as we are.”

The growth rate, not a drought, generated the need for this partnership, HCPUA General Manager Graham Moore said.

“Truthfully, if there was no additional growth, [water needs] could be dealt with through conservation measures and other things,” Moore said. “It’s the number of people and businesses that are coming to the area that causes the need for more water to come in. If it wasn’t for growth, there would be no need for the PUA.”

The pipeline’s design is about 90 percent complete, and the pump station is in early engineering design. Moore anticipates construction on the pipeline will begin in early 2017, and the pump station construction will kick off in spring 2017. Both projects should be done by early 2018 and will cost about $12 million combined, he said.

Initially, water from the Edwards Aquifer and Canyon Lake that has been permitted to Kyle and San Marcos will be shared with Buda through the pipe, but the HCPUA plans to hook the new infrastructure up to the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in 2023. This will cost an additional $185 million to be split among the cities of San Marcos, Kyle, Buda and CRWA.

“Water is a critical issue in the state of Texas,” Moore said. “It’s become much more prominent over the last four or five years, and hopefully people realize their cities and utility districts are being proactive and looking at the next source of water.”