Hutto outlines water supply improvements

There are signs of an improvement in the water supply for the city of Hutto. (Courtesy of the city of Hutto)

With Hutto’s current population of over 30,000 people and around 1,000 homes being built each year, the city needs to increase its water supply to meet the demands of future growth, said City Manager Warren Hutmacher.

Following the city council’s approval of Phase 1 plans for a three-phase project on March 4, Hutto will see improvements to its water supply to take advantage of the city’s current system and reduce reliance on water additives from outside sources.

“To be able to deliver [future residents] With water, we need more water than we do now, ”said Hutmacher. “What this does in the longer term determines where we get this water from and how much it will cost us to be able to produce it.”

Where is the water?

Overall, Hutto gets its water from four sources: the Heart of Texas water system in Hutto, the special Jonah service district, Manville Water Supply Corp. as well as additional nutritional supplements from Manville and the City of Taylor, Hutmacher said.

Hutto bought his current system at Shiloh pumping station in 2017 from water utilities in the heart of Texas for $ 59 million.

Alderman Peter Gordon said residents living north of Limmer Loop get their water from Jonah. The residents between Limmer Loop and Carl Stern Drive get their water from the Hutto water system. Residents living south of Carl Stern Drive get their water from Manville. Residents who get their water from Hutto’s system receive nutritional supplements from Manville and the City of Taylor.

Hutto’s contracts with Taylor and Manville are both take-or-pay contracts, meaning the seller is guaranteed a base price regardless of how much water is drawn. Hutto signed his 40-year contract with Taylor in 2002. The city pays Taylor $ 4.30 per 1,000 gallons with a minimum of 175,000 gallons per day and a base price of $ 5,607 per month, said Stacy Schmitt, Hutto’s public information officer . The 15-year Manville contract was signed in 2019 for $ 3.50 per 1,000 gallons with a minimum of 200,000 gallons per day. If Hutto uses more than 600,000 gallons a day, the city of Manville owes an additional 20% of the rate, Schmitt said.

During the winter storm in mid-February, when Taylor and Manville could no longer supply the town with water, Hutto was left with its three wells, Gordon said. Then the pumps for two of the wells became inoperable, leaving only one pump operational for the entire city, resulting in lower water pressure.

City workers worked around the clock to keep the system running and were able to get one of the pumps back online in a matter of days, Gordon said.

“If someone else had owned the system, they might just have given up,” he said.

After seeing the Hutto City staff’s insistence on keeping the system going for as long as possible, Gordon said it spoke of Hutto’s ability to control his fate with his own system.

Re-evaluation of the system

After being tasked with evaluating Hutto’s current system, DCS Engineering LLC presented its recommendations to the city council on February 10 for improvements to meet the city’s short-, medium- and long-term water needs.

The first part of the three-phase plan consists of the creation of three new wells to be extracted from the Simsboro Aquifer in order to maximize Hutto’s existing water source as per city documents. An aquifer storage and recovery well will be created to store excess water during times of low demand and use it in summer when demand is highest.

The city’s existing wells are located 42 km east of Shiloh Pumping Station near the Williamson County and Lee County lines. Because the aquifer storage and recovery well is within city limits, the water can be stored from Shiloh and drawn closer to Hutto, Gordon said.

Phase one will also reduce Taylor and Manville’s water volume to the minimum volume under their contracts. This would save $ 160,000 a year, according to DCS Engineering Hutto.

The recommendation for the first phase is to end Taylor and Manville’s water supply contracts for good, saving the city $ 700,000 annually.

Taylor’s contract will expire in 2042 and Manville will expire in 2034, Schmitt said.

Pay for the project

Overall, the first phase is expected to cost around $ 17 million. Hutto currently has $ 12.7 million in utility bonds that could be used for the project. In 2017, Hutto issued over $ 80 million worth of commitment certificates – bonds that don’t require voter approval and that allow local governments to fund public works, Schmitt said. This funding allowed the city to purchase the current water system and fund other utility and tax supported projects.

While the plans for the project were approved at the March 4 meeting, Councilor Tanner Rose said the team working on the project must come back and come up with the cost of the council’s approval.

With around $ 4.3 million still needed to cover the estimated cost of the first phase, the city needs to figure out where to get the funds from. Councilor Dan Thornton said he was not in favor of increasing rates for residents and did not want to consider this as an option.

The groundwater rate for Hutto residents is $ 7.82 for 0 to 5,000 gallons of water. For comparison, the groundwater rate in Pflugerville is $ 3.80 for 0 to 3,000 gallons of water. Round Rock’s base price is $ 2.56 per 1,000 gallons for 0-15,000 gallons.

When Ida and James Weaver moved to Hutto six years ago, they found that their water bills were higher than cities like Dallas and Houston.

“We were shocked when we received our first water bill for the first time,” said Ida Weaver. “It goes up all the time.”

For a month, the Weavers bill was over $ 200. Ida Weaver said it was at a time when she was gardening and using more water than usual.

Reducing the volume of water from the Taylor and Manville contracts would save the city some money that could be used on the project, Thornton said. Water impact fees for new developments also contribute to the funds.

For every home in a new development there is a set impact fee for the water supply and sewage system. Hutto has long had some of the lowest water impact charges in the region, Thornton said. After adjusting fees in February, new developments will do more to offset the city’s increasing infrastructure, he said.

The first phase, which is expected to be completed in September 2022, does not have to be paid for in one go. Some project elements, such as B. a tariff study, will have to be paid in the near future, while others will be paid on construction.

Go forward

For the past two years, Gordon said he had heard arguments for and against Hutton’s purchase of the Heart of Texas system. The assessment by DCS Engineering enabled an outside perspective to provide impartial recommendations for improvement that match the city’s population growth.

“I heard them say, ‘It would be a mistake to sell this system. It would be better to invest in them, ”he said.

When Rose first heard the presentation, he said he thought the project was too good to be true but was pleasantly surprised and excited about a roadmap for growth and spending.

The city council is currently waiting for a tariff study to be submitted to determine whether current water tariffs are too high or too low. After the study was presented, Rose said he hoped the residents of Hutto could get some relief with their billing.

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