Council Updates Austin’s 100-Year Water Forward Plan

Bone-dry Barton Creek during severe drought last December (photo by John Anderson)

As Austin looks toward a future of co-accelerating climate change and population growth, Council has approved the first update in four years to the city’s 100-year water resource plan, Water Forward. Though with some 2024 conservation goals missed, there was considerable discussion on the dais last month about pushing the utility to go further in its conservation goals, or if it will even be able to meet them.

Right now, Austin contains about 5.4 people per acre – by 2080 that’s projected to climb to 8.4 people, and almost 10 people in the next 100 years. Meanwhile, flow in the Colorado River is projected to decrease severely over the same period due to climate change. Water Forward contains several strategies to address those realities, centered around fixing leaky pipes, urging residential and commercial customers to conserve, and implementing non-potable water reuse. On the supply side, plans center around aquifer storage and recovery (storing water in an aquifer during rainy seasons for future use in drought), a new reservoir, and brackish groundwater desalination. AW stresses that the most important strategy is the one regular Austinites have the most control over – their own conservation. Enter the My ATX Water system.

My ATX Water – a new citywide system of smart water meters that offer each AW customer a portal showing real-time water usage data, including alerts for drought restriction violations – will be installed by the end of this year. AW Director Shay Ralls Roalson told Council that it’s “a game changer for us. We’re all about using this portal to communicate more in a more targeted way with our customers, so they understand the part they have to play.”

The only issue is that AW receives pretty vague data from the portal, making enforcement difficult. Mayor Kirk Watson introduced an amendment to the plan adding quarterly reports back to Council on conservation strategies, urging that they should be broken down by residential, industrial, and commercial customer classes – but AW doesn’t currently have that information. In a preliminary analysis of residential data, it found only about half are watering on schedule according to current Stage 2 drought restrictions, but couldn’t differentiate “what is an irrigation violation versus somebody doing laundry,” said Roalson.

Council Member Ryan Alter said, “I think of this akin to speed limits – if there were no signs on the road, everyone goes as fast as they can. Unfortunately for too many people, the way that they stop speeding is they get a ticket. Enforcement will be crucial if we’re going to meet the goals we’re setting as a city.”

Meeting those goals is difficult – in the first Water Forward plan from 2018, the conservation goal for 2024 was 119 gallons per day, which we did not meet due to population growth and extreme heat. AW’s 2029 goal for the next update was 121 gallons – Alter amended that to try for 119 again, the original goal for this year, saying, “I believe it’s really important for us to at least maintain our level of ambition.”

“This is not a goal where we can just put enough money and people into it that Austin Water can meet it on our own,” urged Roalson. “This is a call to action. I believe our community will respond.”