Save Water, Save Money

In a story in the Austin Chronicle (“Best laid plans,” July 16)  about the failure to coordinate regional long-term planning, Katherine Gregor raises Water Treatment Plant 4 as an example of gross planning failure:

Asked for specific examples of the problem, [Kent Butler, director of the graduate pro­gram in community and regional planning at the University of Texas' School of Architecture]  … points to the fact that the city’s Austin Water utility is building an expensive new water treatment plant (Water Treatment Plant No. 4) on Lake Travis – just a jet-ski ride away from where Brushy Creek Regional Utility Authority is building its own, separate new water treatment plant, “all with little or no coordination.” That missed opportunity to work collaboratively translates to big increases in water rates, he said, particularly straining households struggling with poverty (which include 19% of Travis County’s children).

The two projects also reflect burgeoning regional (and statewide) competition for resources, especially water. It’s difficult to get competing communities to collaborate on long-range planning if they (rightly or wrongly) perceive a direct conflict in their interests. The risk, said Butler: “Over time, the cost and reliability of municipal water supplies is likely to become more precious, less secure, and much more expensive.”

This would have been a nice critique to hear made before the city already began pumping money into WTP4 construction.

WTP4 is a bad idea for many reasons – for ratepayers, for neighborhoods, for the environment – and you can add to the list that a complete lack of long-range planning renders it redundant in the big picture with similar, nearby infrastructure because it’s uncoordinated with regional water interests.

- Scott Henson