Posted: Tue, 9 Feb 2010 12:33 PM - 11,546 Readers

By: James Walker

Opponents of the City of Burnet’s application for a permit that would allow it to more than double its current allowable discharge of wastewater and effluent into Hamilton Creek urged Texas Commission on Environmental Quality officials to compel the city to significantly alter the application.

Officials with the cities of Austin and Lakeway, the Protect Lake Travis environmental organization and water supply companies and property owners along Hamilton Creek in the southern portion of Burnet County expressed alarm at the possibility the city of Burnet would be permitted to increase its allowable discharge into Hamilton Creek from the current 726,000 gallons a day to 1.7 million gallons a day if the permit application is approved by TCEQ.

The comments were made at a public hearing held by the TCEQ Thursday evening at the Burnet Community Center.

Burnet plans to build a new wastewater and sewer treatment plant and has petitioned TCEQ to be allowed to raise its discharge limits in order to accommodate future growth.

Burnet currently disposes of almost all of its wastewater and effluent through irrigation, but maintains it needs to preserve and possibly increase its right to lawfully discharge into Hamilton Creek if circumstances make it necessary in the future.

Opponents of Burnet’s permit maintain increased discharge will degrade Hamilton Creek and Lake Travis, which the creek empties into more than 14 miles downstream.

“The draft permit would clearly result in significant degradation of Hamilton Creek versus current conditions,” Ross Crow, an assistant city attorney with the city of Austin, told the TCEQ officials. “Predicted nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations at the mouth of the creek, could be increased on average 68 and 23 times, respectively, under the draft permit.”