Posted: Thu, 10 Dec 2009 10:06 AM - 11,396 Readers

By: Marty Toohey

Volunteers and city staffers will begin transplanting native plants Thursday from a site near Lake Travis that will soon be cleared to make way for a new, controversial water-treatment plant.

From a city release, which has an interesting way of describing the people who will be volunteering:

“Volunteers from environmental and neighborhood groups will assist city staff with the relocation of native trees and plants from the future site of the Austin Water Utility’s Water Treatment Plant 4 (WTP4) site on Thursday, December 10th.

Plants will also be moved on December 12th and 16th. Some of the plants will be relocated to Bull Creek District Park … Other plants will be relocated to parks and preserves throughout Austin. … Organizations and city departments involved in the relocation effort include: the Native Plant Society of Austin, Travis Audubon Society, American Youthworks, Austin Water Utility, Watershed Protection Department, and the Parks and Recreation Department.”

Sounds like the utility has re-established a working relationship with “environmental and neighborhood groups,” even though that’s the best way to describe the vocal coalition that is against the plant and critical of the utility itself.

Those critics include the Save Our Springs Alliance, Austin chapter of the Sierra Club, Public Citizen, People in Defense of Earth and Her Resources and the Austin Neighborhoods Council — basically the city’s most prominent environmental and neighborhood groups, who vociferously objected to the $508 million project.

The City Council gave the critical approval for the plant in October. It will almost assuredly be built now. But make no mistake; those prominent environmental and neighborhood groups have made clear they’re still against the project, and they’re still ticked at the water utility.