Community members are slated to speak Thursday at a Texas Commission on Environmental Quality public meeting about concerns with discharging wastewater into Onion Creek, which could contaminate the Dripping Springs-area drinking water supply.

Ginger Faught, Dripping Springs’ deputy city administrator, explained the city will be at the meeting as a participant and council members will be in attendance, but it is TCEQ’s meeting.

“The city of Dripping Springs has applied for a discharge permit in the amount of 995,000 gallons per day. The draft permit was issued by the state in September,” she said.

Residents from Austin, Buda and Dripping Springs as well as members of local grass-roots organization Protect Our Water plan to be at the meeting to ask questions, POW board member Richard Beggs said.

“We’re a bunch of citizens who are going to be impacted by this issue, and we’re really a grass-roots organization that formed in response to the city’s permit plans,” he said, explaining if the permit is approved the city could end up discharging hundreds of gallons of water into the Onion Creek waterway, which stretches more than 70 miles.

Beggs, who lives on the creek, said local groundwater districts have published scientific analysis suggesting the creek recharges the aquifer.

“They have issued a warning saying if you put treated wastewater in this creek, there’s a high risk of contaminating our groundwater. … We have 5,000 kids in our schools who drink the water coming straight out of these wells,” he said. “What we really want to see is for the city to have a solution that basically can use the water in a beneficial reuse manner to where they never have to discharge into the creek. They have been willing to make that commitment.”

The city has discussed wastewater issues with a variety of stakeholders over the past several years, including the city of Austin, the TCEQ and the Lower Colorado River Authority. According to the city’s website, the city plans to discharge into Walnut Springs Creek, which is half a mile from Onion Creek. The city has stated it prefers not to discharge and is actively seeking beneficial reuse customers in the area.

“We are applying for a discharge permit, but the city’s intention from the beginning when we started this project is we want to reuse every bit of that water,” Faught said. “We have contracts for reuse projects, and so that would include open-space irrigation, park ballfield irrigation, those types of uses—uses that are currently using either surface water or well water that will come off of those sources.”

The public hearing will be held Thursday at 7 p.m. at Dripping Springs Ranch Road Park, Special Events Venue Room, 1042 Event Center Drive, Dripping Springs.