Fiasco-in-Progress

Dear Editor,
    Thank you for Wells Dunbar’s excellent article [“'Shoddy' and 'Rushed': Spicewood Neighbors Blast WTP4 Water Line Plan,” News, July 9] on the city’s scheme to build a 7-mile-long, $111 million water transmission tunnel from the new water plant at RM 620 and 2222 under Bull Creek, established neighborhoods, and Canyon Vista Middle School and over to U.S. 183 and McNeil Road.
    It’s impossible to list either the known harms or the unanswered questions still remaining for the tunnel, the plant, the construction shaft proposed for Bull Creek parkland, or the other four miles of water tunnels in one news article. Yet a narrow 4-3 majority of our City Council voted last month to begin building the plant.
    For the 10-plus miles of 10-to-13-foot-diameter tunnels, the city has yet to estimate how many truckloads of rock and debris will be required, where the trucks will dump the debris, what traffic tie-ups can be expected, how much water mixed with drilling fluids and waste will be discharged to Bull Creek, or what levels of noise during what hours of day Spicewood neighbors must live with? Or how many Bull Creek headwater springs will be ruined (in addition to the one spring the city already ruined)?
    What is the current total estimated cost of building the plant and its intake and delivery tunnels? The city’s $508 million estimate, or $1.2 billion counting debt-financing costs, is more than a year old. And how much are residential water rates expected to increase in the years ahead to pay for the plant – on top of the 10.1% rate increase already imposed this year?
    Many thanks go to Council Members Laura Morrison, Bill Spelman, and Chris Riley for continuing to oppose this financial and environmental fiasco-in-progress.