New ideas were presented Tuesday regarding area water issues at a joint meeting of the Brownwood City Council and the Brown County Water Improvement District (BCWID) board, including a plan to put Brownwood’s wastewater back into Lake Brownwood.
Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes presented several options to help improve the area’s water issues as the county’s main water source, Lake Brownwood, continues to decline.
“We feel like where the lake is sitting right now at 52% capacity, we have a minimum 2 year supply left in Lake Brownwood, even considering the drought that we are in at this point,” BCWID General Manager Dennis Spinks said. “We are in Stage 3 restrictions; nobody wants to go to Stage 4.”
Haynes presented several options that have been discussed over the last few years to help solve the water issue including the city’s wastewater reuse plan to construct a new treatment plant to treat that water and introduce it back directly into the city’s water supply.
He also discussed other plans including transport of the wastewater back to Lake Brownwood and developing a well field, which both were initially thought to be cost prohibitive.
“My personal opinion is that we need to take some action to address our water problem,” said Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes. “I am not comfortable on doing nothing, but I am comfortable saying we need to continue to investigate our alternatives.”
Haynes said that he has met with BCWID officials and board members on numerous occasions to discuss other water alternatives for the area.
During Tuesday’s public meeting, 13 members of the public addressed both groups with varying opinions on the issue.
BCWID officials said that they have developed a proposal to pipe the wastewater back to Lake Brownwood that could be more cost effective than originally thought.
“The proposal that the district has come up with and wanted to discuss with the public and with the city of Brownwood is an alternate use for the outflow of Brownwood’s wastewater,” said Spinks. “One proposal that was brought up by Stephen Haynes is to take that water back to the lake, which I think is a more appealing option for the district and hopefully to the city of Brownwood and to the public rather than going back to direct reuse.”
Spinks said that the main problem with that proposal originally was the cost of installing water lines and securing easements for the estimated 12 mile trip from Brownwood’s wastewater treatment plant to Lake Brownwood.
“The projected cost estimate originally was $16 million which is not really feasible,” Spinks said.
Based on numbers from the city of Early’s new water pipeline, the water district thinks it may be possible to pipe water from the wastewater plant to the lake for $5-$7 million, according to Spinks. He said this would be possible by using some existing irrigation lines and easements to create a system to deliver that water back to the lake.
“The proposal is to use the full 2.2 million (gallons) of water that the wastewater treatment plant has and be utilized by putting in a pump station and pump that water into our irrigation line,” Spinks said. “Some of those lines are old and may have to be replaced, but some of them have already been replaced.”
Spinks said with the existing easements that the water district already owns, only a few new easements would have to be secured for the idea which would cut down on costs of the proposed plan. He said that the district also owns land near the lake where the water could be introduced which would be at least a half mile from the intake point. This would allow adequate mixture of the wastewater in the lake before it was taken back to the district’s treatment plant.
“If you started this project from scratch, the $16 million figure might be a realistic figure for this, but we are looking at doing it a little bit different in that we would propose that this be a joint project,” Spinks said.
In addition to transporting the wastewater, 200,000 gallons of water per day could also be transported from the water district’s test well that was recently dug in their effort to find another water source.
“I think this would be much more appealing to the people of Brownwood to take that back to the lake and let it go through the lake as a natural buffer before it would go back to our treatment plant which would be approved by the TCEQ, and I think it would take possibly a new discharge permit for the city of Brownwood,” Spinks said.
Spinks also said that this wastewater could be used by large irrigators as it traveled through the irrigation system when demand was high.
Mayor Haynes said that they would need to determine if this plan was feasible with more accurate cost estimates and to determine what type of administration issues they would face as far as TCEQ, permitting, etc.
“We are going to need someone with some experience in design on these pipelines and get a cost estimate on it,” Spinks said. “We are going to either go with our engineering firm or someone else who can help us and advise us in exactly what we need on this project. “
Spinks said he thinks it is possible to get the numbers together in the next couple of months.
“Someone will have to get an engineer’s estimate that we can rely on and also I think an estimate of time of completion,” Haynes said. “Is it going to take 4 years to lay that pipeline or 6 months?”
Spinks said from a public perception standpoint, transporting wastewater back into a lake is becoming an accepted practice in the state.
“Nearly all of the reuse plants right now, Abilene, Wichita Falls, all of these are going back to taking their wastewater and putting back into their lakes,” Spinks said. “I think that is an accepted practice and for us, the added benefit for using it for irrigation is an added bonus.”
“I have no concerns personally about looking into this option,” Haynes said. “If we are going to do it, we need to move as quickly as we possibly can.”
The Brownwood City Council and Brown County Water Improvement District each agreed to research the proposed project to determine the feasibility of this idea and discuss the issue further in their next regular meetings.
Pictured at top, Brownwood Mayor Stephen Haynes outlines several options regarding local water issues at Tuesday’s meeting.
