Austin Water Audit Zeroes In on Problems at Treatment Plant

Weak morale, understaffing contributed to four system failures in five years


The troubled Ullrich Water Treatment Plant on Lake Austin (Photo by Larry D. Moore / CC BY-SA 4.0)

After the city-deemed "ultimately preventable" boil water notice in early February of last year that led to the resignation of Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros, then-Mayor Pro Tem Alison Alter authored a resolution calling for an external audit of the utility to see why the city had weathered five major disruptions to water and wastewater service in as many years. The study focused on Ullrich Water Treatment Plant, the oldest and largest of AW's three plants, as its failures were central to four of these five events.

The audit, delivered to the city last week by the UT-Austin Center for Water and the Environment, found that although AW implemented many after-action report recommendations following the service outages, "weakness in AW's organizational structure and conditions at Ullrich" – particularly the lack of "effective leadership" and "adequate staffing" – could lead to future bungling. The utility has already agreed to 49 of the 53 recommendations in this audit, and will formally respond to Council's Audit Committee and AW Oversight Committee on February 15.

Ullrich has two superintendents, one over maintenance and the other over operations. Do they and their teams work together? Maybe not: The audit suggests that "unease reported among Ullrich WTP staff may be rooted in the lack of clear lines of management authority." The two teams are divided, morale is low, and there is "strong division amongst the staff supporting one or the other of the superintendents' approaches to the work." Around 30% of AW's positions at its treatment plants are vacant, and Ullrich staff reported a lack of effective training, poor compensation, and inconsistent availability of standard operating procedures.

One interviewee stated, "If you keep [Ullrich understaffed] you will definitely get another boil water notice." Another said, "There are things that have been neglected for 20 years. We prioritize, but things do not get done due to the high vacancy rates." Staff also "revealed a perceived inattentiveness to the day-to-day needs of the plant by senior management." The report notes that delays in emergency notification processes may fall under the purview of city management outside of AW, but that the city's water chief should have a direct line to the city manager's office, which is not the case now.

Though the audit goes on to recommend further emergency­-scenario planning, stress testing, and increased preventive maintenance, it maintains that "the most pressing resiliency gap is that the organization lacks the staffing capacity to handle extraordinary events." Climate change will bring stronger and more unpredictable storms that affect water quality, and the report says that in addition to floods, AW should keep an eye on "invasive species, urban development, wildfires [and] emerging contaminants [like] cyanotoxins in Lake Austin."

The audit applauds AW for implementing recommendations made after Winter Storm Uri to make sure its plants don't lose power unnecessarily. Senate Bill 3 in 2021, requiring water providers to submit emergency plans to state regulators, was also "sufficient to build in additional resilience."

During last year's boil water event, Meszaros hinted at AW's staffing challenges, suggesting that critical information may not have been passed along at shift change, and flagging high turnover: "We used to have a lot of operators with 15-20 years of experience. Those days are gone." The audit notes that the American Water Works Association sees the aging workforce and the challenge of talent attraction and retention as common for the water sector. It's now up to newly appointed Director Shay Ralls Roalson, promoted from within, to implement the latest recommendations.

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KEYWORDS FOR THIS STORY

Austin Water, Ullrich Water Treatment Plant, boil water notice, Alison Alter

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