Posted: Wed, 7 Oct 2009 07:18 AM - 6,441 Readers

By: Asher Price

In the latest test of how water will be used and consumed in Central Texas, the cities of Leander and Granite Shoals have asked the state environmental agency to end restrictions on discharging sewage effluent into the Highland Lakes.

In a petition filed in late September at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the cities say that adding effluent into the Colorado River basin, rather than pushing it underground in septic tanks or spraying it on fields for irrigation, will alleviate the escalating crunch on water supplies in the Colorado River basin. In the background are issues of money, development and population growth as cities search for cheap and safe ways to handle sewage.

The City of Austin, the Lower Colorado River Authority, environmentalists and business interests on the lakes appear likely to oppose the petition on water quality grounds, though none has filed opposition yet.

Treated effluent can add to nutrients in the lakes, which feed algae growth that could affect the taste and odor of drinking water pulled from the lakes and the clarity of water in the lakes, according to Lisa Hatzenbuehler, manager of water resource protection for the river authority.

The LCRA says it opposes efforts to lift the discharge ban until it can be shown that doing so won't affect water quality.

The City of Austin, which gets its drinking water from lakes Travis and Buchanan, "has concerns," said Daryl Slusher, assistant director for environmental affairs and conservation at the Austin Water Utility, but he said the city has not decided its position on the petition.

"The fear is where there's one, there's more," Nancy McClintock, assistant director of the City of Austin's watershed protection department, said of the possibility of a new discharging plant on the shores of the Highland Lakes. "Changing an entire rule that's been in place for decades is inviting a lot more discharges."

On the narrowest terms, Granite Shoals and Leander are asking the state agency to end the no-discharge rule so areas of their cities can be more easily developed.

In Leander, most wastewater is treated and discharged into Brushy Creek, which is in a different river basin. But an undeveloped portion of Leander sits in Travis County, and developers in that area would have to choose between land-intensive drip-irrigation and shipping wastewater across town to Brushy Creek, said Biff Johnson, the city manager of Leander.

Johnson, who said no plan or site had been chosen for a new wastewater plant, said discharged effluent treated to state standards would be cleaner than the water pulled out of the lake for drinking purposes.

"The water comes in at a much lower quality than it goes out," said Johnson, who said the discharge rule was not based on science. "To be throwing away so much water each year is just ridiculous."

Developer Bill Hinckley, who owns about 5,000 acres in Leander and is pushing for a change in the rule, said discharging treated wastewater into the Highland Lakes makes more sense.

"When you get miles and miles away, it's more economical to discharge into Lake Travis," said Hinckley, who said he could still build out his development even if the commission does not repeal the ban.

A study commissioned by the City of Granite Shoals, which is on Lake LBJ, indicated the city would have to spend more than $4 million more to purchase and develop irrigation fields and distribution systems than it would to treat and return water to the lake, the petition said.

More broadly speaking, the cities couch the petition as a public policy issue.

The petition, filed Sept. 25, urges the environmental agency to make a decision that would "recognize (treated effluent) as a resource that can and should be used to supplement existing water supplies in the Colorado River Basin."

The practice of discharging treating effluent into waterways — and pulling water in for drinking downstream of effluent discharge — is common in other parts of the state, and the City of Austin itself discharges about 80 million gallons a day of treated effluent into the Colorado downstream from the Highland Lakes.

Emlea Chanslor, a spokeswoman for the LCRA, said that if all treatment plants near the Highland Lakes discharged their permitted amounts into the lakes — most currently irrigate golf courses and other land with the treated effluent — they would add about 8,000 acre-feet to the river each year, a fraction of the 2 million acre-feet of stored water when lakes Travis and Buchanan are full.The environmental agency has until late November, 60 days from the filing, to consider whether to change its rules, spokeswoman Andrea Morrow said.

The current rule, which bars discharge of treated effluent into the Highland Lakes or into any of its tributaries within 10 miles of the lakes, has been in place since the mid-1980s.

Four wastewater discharge systems were grandfathered and still operate, and Leander and Granite Shoals say in their petition that the newer technology will be "superior to these older plants, and more protective of the water quality."

But Lonnie Moore, president of the Protect Lake Travis Association, said effluent discharge would have "a detrimental effect on the lake."

"We don't see any reasons to take these protections away," he said. "Anything that would affect water quality or give the public the impression that the water is degraded will affect tourism and business."