In 2023, the city is relying on a favorable outcome in a lawsuit regarding a state permit that would allow it to release and reuse treated wastewater.
“The biggest issue for us with wastewater service is the lawsuit that we’ve been in with Save Our Springs [Alliance],” said Ginger Faught said, Dripping Springs deputy city administrator.
She said that has stopped the city from implementing a Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System discharge permit, which it filed for in 2015.
The proposed discharge point for treated water—located near the intersection of RR 12 and FM 150—would be into Walnut Springs Creek, about a half-mile from its confluence with Onion Creek.
The SOS, an environmental advocacy group, filed a lawsuit against the city in 2019 after the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality granted the city the permit to prevent discharge into Onion Creek. In 2020, the city appealed the case, and it went to court in El Paso in February 2022. The city received the court’s opinion Dec. 13, which ruled in the city’s favor. SOS has filed for a rehearing in that same court. Briefs were due to the court Jan. 28, and the court will announce this year if it will rehear the case.
This permit will also allow the city to implement beneficial reuse—using treated wastewater for irrigation in common spaces—said Aaron Reed, Dripping Springs public works director.
Dripping Springs operates under a land permit, which requires the city to have enough land to disperse all of the treated wastewater, Reed said.
The city would deal with most of the wastewater through beneficial reuse, Reed said.
In a statement, SOS leaders expressed disappointment in the decision to rule in the city’s favor.
“We believe the city of Dripping Springs should honor its purported commitment to never discharge its treated wastewater to Onion Creek by dropping the litigation and making this commitment binding under the law,” SOS leaders said in the statement.
