Did you know that Austin's WTP4 will cost taxpayers over $1 billion including interest?
11 important facts you should know about Water Treatment Plant #4.
1. City cost estimates put WTP4 at $1.2 billion, counting interest and debt financing charges.
2. Significant hidden cost overruns are already running the price tag beyond this estimate. Specifically, the City’s official $508 million (without interest) cost estimate excludes over $60 million spent on the project before 2008. To hide the fact that the plant is already over budget, the City also lopped off a $30 million transmission main that has always been a critical component of the plant. This tunnel will need to be built within a few years – but it disappeared from the budget without explanation as the costs for other components busted the $508 million budget.
3. WTP4 does not make water. It does not make it rain. It does not put water in the Highland Lakes. It can only treat the water that is there. In the drought of 2009 Austin water use was cut back when Lake Travis was 60 percent empty after only two years of drought. Committing a billion dollars to a new plant will not protect Austin’s economy from droughts – it will only take away limited funds that should be invested in making Austin a more water efficient economy.
4. WTP4 will do NOTHING to protect Austin from fires. Sadly, the opposite is true. Old, frail, and too small pipes have, on occasion, hindered firefighting. Water treatment capacity has never been known to hinder firefighting. The Austin Water Utility, with city council support, has slashed the budget for replacing old, failing pipes that waste large amounts of water and interrupt water supply in 2010 and 2011 and in the proposed 2012 budget. See the attached staff memo to Water and Wastewater Commissioner Gwen Webb from last year’s budget process. At the same time the council majority of Mayor Leffingwell and councilmembers Mike Martinez, Sheryl Cole, and Randi Shade have ramped up spending on the water plant. Councilmembers Laura Morrison, Bill Spelman, and Chris Riley have opposed building the plant at this time.
5. Building WTP4 with long-term debt backed by future water sales will require Austin to encourage water waste for 25 years in order to pay for the plant. Every incentive for water conservation – other than sky high water rates – will go out the window.
6. We’ve already seen the Austin Water Utility undermine water conservation efforts. Read citizen water expert Paul Robbins’ report on AWU’s water conservation programs, titled “Read It and Leak”.
7. First approved in 1984, WTP4 was repeatedly postponed in favor of more affordable options until 2002, when peak day demand increases in the 90s suggested an upcoming need for increased treatment capacity. However, our record peak occurred in August 2001, and has been flat to declining ever since. Austin’s Ullrich water plant was expanded by 67 MGD in 2006/2007 – more than making up for the shut down of the 42 MGD “Green” plant. It is now clear we do not need additional capacity until 2025 or later, by the City’s own calculations.
8. Located at intersection of 2222 and 620, early phases of WTP4 are under construction. Last month AWU director Greg Meszaros told the Austin City Council that $115 million had been spent on project development and construction. More than $300 million has yet to be expended.
9. WTP4 will require over 10 miles of tunnels blasted and bored thru Hill Country bedrock – to deliver the water to the plant from Lake Travis and then pipe the water out from the plant into the system. That’s why the cost is so enormous.
10. Building WTP4 on the northern Edwards Aquifer recharge zone, and tunneling under the Bull Creek Preserve, will destroy endangered species habitats to a significant degree. The City has yet to demonstrate that the ten miles of tunneling can be undertaken safely, and without disrupting critical endangered species habitats and spring flows in Upper Bull Creek.
11. Scare tactics from the Austin Water Utility that we need a third water plant to minimize risk are just that – scare tactics. If you read the Water Utility’s own internal risk assessment it says not a single word about any risk to our water supply from operating on only two plants. If there was any kind of risk, the Water Utility would have never shut down the Green plant years ahead of schedule.
What to do?? -- The City should (a) put the project on hold, at a “mothball” cost of $6 million (according to Water Utility staff), but then, according to staff, we save over $14 million every year the project is postponed; and (b) appoint an independent review commission to develop a consensus plan for meeting Austin’s water needs – one that is affordable, sustainable, and good for business and the environment.
It is not too late to “mothball” WTP4. If the plant were “mothballed,” Austin ratepayers could avoid spending an additional $300 to $400 million to complete the plant; plus avoid interest payments; plus avoid O&M costs for many, many years. Expenditures for land, engineering and construction to date would not be “lost” but preserved for when they might be needed in the future.