Friday, November 22, 2024 by Mina Shekarchi
On Thursday, the City Council approved updates for Austin Water Forward Plan and on the relevant nature conservation and drought contingency plans.
Water Forward, Austin's 100-year integrated water resources plan, was first adopted by the city in 2018, following the record-breaking, nearly decade-long drought in Central Texas that ended in 2016, with significant stakeholder engagement. The updated plan includes new projections for population changes, climate trends and water flows. It builds on the resiliency strategies of the original plan and manages Austin's water supply (the combined storage in Lakes Buchanan and Travis).
Some of Water Forward's strategies aim to reduce overall water use by incentivizing area landscaping and mitigating water losses among utilities and customers. Accordingly, Austin Water is almost finished installing smart residential water meters citywide. The plan also aims to expand existing water supplies to accommodate population growth, drought and climate change by expanding city-style water reuse Go purple Program that expands our domestic water system. New options for water storage would also be explored, such as using space in a neighboring aquifer. Water Forward also identifies longer-term strategies for creating new water supplies, such as treating saline groundwater until it is safe to use.
Austin's drought emergency and water conservation plans, which must be sent to state agencies every five years, were also approved. They were first updated in May of this year to meet state deadlines. Some stakeholders felt the goals of these plans weren't aggressive enough to respond to the expected impacts of the climate crisis. As a compromise, Council agreed to work with the Water Forward Task Force to consider further updates to these two plans in addition to the Water Forward updates.
Bill Bunch, executive director of the Save Our Springs Alliance, along with several other water advocates, raised some criticisms of the plans. Bunch has long been vocal about his concerns that the utility is investing too much in infrastructure development and not placing enough emphasis on the need for individual protection and more aggressive community-wide goals.
Austin Water “continues to rely predominantly on huge … construction projects. “We're not going to have enough water to send to expanded treatment plants,” he said during the council meeting. “We know what to do from our last drought. And that means…embracing decentralized conservation and reuse and challenging our community to…create a culture of conservation.”
Austin Water Director Shay Ralls Roalson called the infrastructure projects “generational investments” and emphasized that the goals set out in the conservation plan are already “achievements” for the community.
“We are faced with the challenge of rethinking our approach to water,” she said. “The next five years are a critical time. … The risk we face during this time is that if we do not make significant progress toward our goals, our customers may no longer believe that what they do as individuals can make a difference.”
Several members of the panel acknowledged advocates' concerns while supporting the updated plans.
“Should we strive to do more? Yes. But I still think today’s vote … is an important update in this process,” said Councilwoman Alison Alter. She encouraged community members to invite Austin Water to events and include conservation resources in their newsletters.
Council member Ryan Alter authored two motions to increase the impact of the water conservation plan. Further language said Austin Water would use the city's new residential smart meters to enforce violations of irrigation restrictions. The other measure slightly increased the goals of the plan to reduce water consumption in the community.
“This … gets us to our water conservation goal … where we hoped to be today, five years from now,” he said.
Mayor Pro Tem Leslie Pool, chairwoman of the Austin Water Oversight Committee, said she could not support Alter's request to raise conservation goals. She emphasized that the Water and Wastewater Commission, the Resource Management Commission and the Water Forward Task Force supported the original revised conservation goals.
“I want to set achievable goals because I want to increase public support and trust in our policies,” she said.
Mayor Kirk Watson also voted against the amendment.
Watson authored additional instructions for Austin Water to include a breakdown of residential, industrial and commercial progress toward these goals in their quarterly reports to council. All three proposals were accepted by the council.
Speakers, council members and Austin Water staff all emphasized that Austin residents would play an important role in implementing these plans.
“This doesn’t just affect the water supplier. … (They) help strengthen us, but that’s on us and that’s on the community,” Ryan Alter said.
Director Ralls Roalson highlighted the efforts Austin Water would make to achieve these goals, including implementing the results of a recent external review of Austin Water's system-wide water loss, promoting conservation incentives and rebates, and using smarter resources Residential meters to warn customers of high water consumption.
“This is the most comprehensive water conservation plan we have ever had. … There are no policies that hold us back,” she said. “Setting a goal in terms of gallons per capita per day is not particularly meaningful to the average Austinite, but what makes sense is education and incentives that are attractive and actionable so that our customers understand their responsibilities.”…This is a call to action Act.”
The photo is made available via a Creative Commons license.
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