City of Fredericksburg officials have offered to meet with a group of waterfront landowners on the Pedernales River who reportedly intend to file suit against the city if improvements are not made to the city’s wastewater treatment plant.

The citizens’ group -- represented by attorney David Braun of Braun & Associates in Dripping Springs -- maintains that discharges from Fredericksburg’s wastewater plant have caused abnormal growths of algae in the Pedernales as far downstream as Lake Travis.

Water discharged from the treatment plant is filtered into Barons Creek, which feeds into the Pedernales River.

“The materials forwarded to the city along with the complaint letter do not support their claim of significant harm,” city officials said in a press release Tuesday.

“The city is committed to providing safe drinking water and to operating the wastewater plant in a responsible manner, and has done so at a reasonable cost for many years. It continues to seek ways to improve the system through the innovative use of effluent and purchases of newer and more efficient equipment.”

In a May 25 letter to City Manager Gary Neffendorf, Braun said his clients have initiated an official complaint with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) and are “contacting other waterfront landowners to join an alliance to protect the Pedernales River and its tributaries.”

“Our clients are directly harmed by this pollution of Barons Creek and the Pedernales River,” Braun said in the letter. “We are requesting that the City of Fredericksburg voluntarily upgrade its wastewater treatment efforts to reduce the discharge of phosphorus and other nutrients to levels that no longer cause measurable pollution of Barons Creek.”

The citizens’ group maintains that phosphorus discharges from the wastewater plant are a direct cause of bright green algal mats visible from the U.S. Highway 290 bridge over Barons Creek.

However, the city representative claimed that algae blooms can occur when the water flow is low, creating stagnant conditions and allowing the algae to collect and grow.