In the coming weeks, Round Rock will be able to bring water into its utility system from Lake Travis—a prospect the city wants to delay for as long as possible.
Michael Thane, Round Rock director of utilities, said a treated water line connecting Round Rock’s water distribution system to a water treatment plant in Cedar Park was completed in April. The water treatment plant is connected to Lake Travis, where the city of Round Rock has water contracted for use. Once repairs to a water treatment plant are complete Round Rock will have access to the Lake Travis water.
However, Round Rock does not want to utilize the water from Lake Travis anytime soon, Thane said. He said the water from Lake Travis is significantly more expensive for the city to use compared with its current water sources from lakes in the Brazos River basin—Lake Georgetown and Stillhouse Hollow Lake.
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“Right now even if all the infrastructure was built and we could take [Lake Travis] water we wouldn’t because we have enough water in our Brazos River lakes,” he said.
The need to draw water from Lake Travis has been delayed through water conservation efforts and the city’s water reuse program, Thane said.
“Our demands are a lot lower than they were just a couple of years ago,” Thane said.
According to city documents, water usage in the past five years peaked in August 2011 with an average daily demand of 39 million gallons in Round Rock. Since then, water usage peaks have declined even as the population has increased. The peak in 2014 occurred in August with 26 million gallons of average daily demand.
Even with conservation efforts, Thane said the city’s usage will inevitably rise again as the population grows. When the city does access the Lake Travis water, it will do so through the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority, an agreement among the cities of Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock to access the water contracted through the Lower Colorado River Authority.
Getting the infrastructure in place to pull from Lake Travis has been a project 10 years in the making. The cities of Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock formed the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority in 2007, which had been in the works for two years previous.
Thane said Phase 1 of the BCRUA’s plan was to build a barge on Lake Travis with water intake pumps that would bring the water to the treatment plant in Cedar Park.
Thane said the barge worked as it was designed to when it was completed in 2012, but a year later Lake Travis water levels were too low.
“Those pumps were almost touching the [lake bed],” Thane said.
Thane said the BCRUA plans to move the barge out to get it working again by Aug. 1.
Thane said work has started on Phase 2 of the project, which would place an intake system in a deeper part of Lake Travis. He said the deep-water intake is a pipe buried in the lake bed that will pump water to the BCRUA plant. He said when the deep-water system is active, Round Rock and its partnering cities will be able to pump water from Lake Travis at a minimum of 560 feet above sea level. He said the BCRUA is in the environmental/preliminary design phase of the deep-water intake, and it will probably be active around 2020.
Mayor Pro-tem George White said accessing the Lake Travis water will suffice to the city’s build-out at about 250,000 people.
He said the city is looking at building wells and also examined the possibility of tapping into the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer but that it was too expensive.
“We do need to make sure our great-grandchildren have water to brush their teeth and wash their faces,” he said.
In the coming weeks, Round Rock will be able to bring water into its utility system from Lake Travis—a prospect the city wants to delay for as long as possible.
Michael Thane, Round Rock director of utilities, said a treated water line connecting Round Rock’s water distribution system to a water treatment plant in Cedar Park was completed in April. The water treatment plant is connected to Lake Travis, where the city of Round Rock has water contracted for use. Once repairs to a water treatment plant are complete Round Rock will have access to the Lake Travis water.
However, Round Rock does not want to utilize the water from Lake Travis anytime soon, Thane said. He said the water from Lake Travis is significantly more expensive for the city to use compared with its current water sources from lakes in the Brazos River basin—Lake Georgetown and Stillhouse Hollow Lake.
[polldaddy poll=8908450]
“Right now even if all the infrastructure was built and we could take [Lake Travis] water we wouldn’t because we have enough water in our Brazos River lakes,” he said.
The need to draw water from Lake Travis has been delayed through water conservation efforts and the city’s water reuse program, Thane said.
“Our demands are a lot lower than they were just a couple of years ago,” Thane said.
According to city documents, water usage in the past five years peaked in August 2011 with an average daily demand of 39 million gallons in Round Rock. Since then, water usage peaks have declined even as the population has increased. The peak in 2014 occurred in August with 26 million gallons of average daily demand.
Even with conservation efforts, Thane said the city’s usage will inevitably rise again as the population grows. When the city does access the Lake Travis water, it will do so through the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority, an agreement among the cities of Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock to access the water contracted through the Lower Colorado River Authority.
Getting the infrastructure in place to pull from Lake Travis has been a project 10 years in the making. The cities of Cedar Park, Leander and Round Rock formed the Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority in 2007, which had been in the works for two years previous.
Thane said Phase 1 of the BCRUA’s plan was to build a barge on Lake Travis with water intake pumps that would bring the water to the treatment plant in Cedar Park.
Thane said the barge worked as it was designed to when it was completed in 2012, but a year later Lake Travis water levels were too low.
“Those pumps were almost touching the [lake bed],” Thane said.
Thane said the BCRUA plans to move the barge out to get it working again by Aug. 1.
Thane said work has started on Phase 2 of the project, which would place an intake system in a deeper part of Lake Travis. He said the deep-water intake is a pipe buried in the lake bed that will pump water to the BCRUA plant. He said when the deep-water system is active, Round Rock and its partnering cities will be able to pump water from Lake Travis at a minimum of 560 feet above sea level. He said the BCRUA is in the environmental/preliminary design phase of the deep-water intake, and it will probably be active around 2020.
Mayor Pro-tem George White said accessing the Lake Travis water will suffice to the city’s build-out at about 250,000 people.
He said the city is looking at building wells and also examined the possibility of tapping into the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer but that it was too expensive.
“We do need to make sure our great-grandchildren have water to brush their teeth and wash their faces,” he said.
