Water Plant Finall Gets Long-overdue Go-Ahead

The Austin City Council will finally continue the construction on a third water treatment plant. Water Treatment Plant 4, located at 620 and RM 2222, would be Austin’s third operational water treatment plant. It is scheduled for completion in 2014, but if the plants opponents had their way, the date would have been pushed back or scrapped altogether.
One argument states that aggressive water conservation would lessen the need for a new plant. Even though Austin has embraced water conservation that does not obviate the need for more treatment capacity.
Marty Toohey, from the American Statesman, reported that the seven member council is now in full agreement that shutting down or delaying the plant’s construction would cost too much money. The city has already more than $300 million tied up in the plant. Delaying or stopping the construction will cost the city more than $100 million.
It has been 25 years since the proposal to build Water Treatment Plant 4 was first aired. Two years ago, the council finally took a vote, and the plant was narrowly approved, 4-3.
The defeat of Randi Shade in the spring election revived opponent’s hopes of killing the plant. Council Member Bill Spelman offered a resolution that moved in that direction, but Mayor Sheryl Cole engineered a compromise that included the study of the costs of delaying the plant that produced a convincing fiscal argument to move ahead.
Spelman stated, “I still don’t believe we should have started construction, but here we are half way through building it, and I think we should finish.”
Everyone in Austin should read this article. There are two operational treatment plants that went on line in 1954 and 1969 and the life span for a treatment plant is only 50 years. Should Austin have invested in another treatment plant? I think there should not be a question about it. Yes. Austin has been in a serious drought for quite a while. One of the arguments is that we have embraced water conservation. Have we? I still drive around and see businesses with green lawns. I do not think everyone has. We have been debating about this plant for 25 years, about opening this plant. We are half way done with it. I think it can only help our situation. It will cost us more to delay or stop the construction than to finish.