Water Treatment Plant No. 4‘s strange odyssey slogs on this week, as stakeholders at the city and county level struggle to catch up with the City Council’s decision-making. In late June, council approved proceeding with WTP 4 in the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve, on land in northwest Austin bought by the city and county as a hedge against future growth in the ecologically sensitive area. The original site, at the headwaters of Lake Travis, is home to the endangered Golden-Cheeked Warbler; that and other environmental concerns have kept the site from use since its acquisition in the mid-1980s.
As an alternative, water utility staff proposed building the plant on the nearby Cortaña tract, which isn’t without its own worries; it’s home to another threatened bird, the Black-Capped Vireo. The water utility and city staff argue that, given the higher bird numbers elsewhere in Texas and out-of-state, and the relatively small number at the Cortaña tract (some five “nesting pairs”), the trade-off is tenable. The boards and commissions advising the utility and overseeing the BCP would like to agree, but seemingly can’t – at both the city and county level, there’s reluctance and anger at having been left in the dark earlier.
Wednesday, Aug. 2, the Water and Wastewater Commission considered recommending an amendment to the BCP’s federal Fish & Wildlife permit, required for the Cortaña move. The motion passed, but not before two commissioners voted no. Leslie Pool and Laura Raun unsuccessfully moved for a two-week delay to allow Balcones Canyonlands Conservation Plan committees time to evaluate the site. “It’s a rush to decision without time to deliberate,” Pool says. Particularly galling is that a report on the alternate site was prepared last September, but Pool’s commission received it only July 21. “I should have had it half a year ago,” she said. At the meeting, Assistant City Manager Juan Garza responded that plant developers Carollo Engineers, awarded $10 million (of a $50 million contract) for “preliminary site assessment,” needed all of the six-month period in which the Vireo migrates to perform that work. Pool was unconvinced. “If they got into the site two weeks later, they’d still have more than enough time. But we haven’t seen their timeline, or any scope documents. … We haven’t seen any concrete proof of that,” she says. “I personally don’t buy that they needed every day of that six-month period … but I don’t have anything but their statements to go on.” Pool’s also concerned that Carollo, having been paid more than a million dollars for assessment work at the original site, has not provided its report to the commission.
Water and Wastewater is one of several committees considering the move: August 8, BCCP’s Citizens Advisory Committee supported building on Cortaña, but only if the water utility acquires extra land for Vireo habitat; BCCP’s Scientific Advisory Committee took it up Aug. 7, but delayed action. Similarly, the city’s Environmental Board will make a decision this Wednesday, Aug. 16, after delaying it earlier this month. Yet there’s one more group looking at the decision, holding considerably more sway: Travis Co. Commissioner’s Court mulls the amendment Aug. 15, having punted it from Aug. 1. Pool won’t be surprised if more ripples stir the surface before council acts on it Aug. 24. “It’s an equal legal partnership [between the city and the county],” Pool says. “The city can’t just unilaterally move forward.”
This article appears in August 11 • 2006.