County aims to stop discharge into Blanco River

Hays County has begun to use a new agreement with Texas State University to try and help the city of Blanco find a new path for the city’s proposed wastewater treatment expansion. The expansion would include a substantial increase in allowable discharge into the Blanco River, which the county and other organizations are trying to prevent.

“When they did discharge last year, we saw some pretty extensive algae blooms just downstream from their plant, so we believe if they were to discharge in large amounts, as their application currently would allow, that we could see detrimental effects to our river and the groundwater,” Hays County Commissioner Lon Shell said.

The city of Blanco dropped its application to be able to treat for 1.6 million gallons of sewage per day and is in the process of creating a new application to be able to treat closer to half a million gallons per day.

While that process continues, Hays County has offered to help pay for engineering to find alternative paths for the city’s wastewater expansion that do not include discharging into the Blanco River.

“We have continued to work with them to tell (the city of Blanco) we don’t want discharge, and we are happy to help,” Shell said. “We don’t want to just deal with it in the courts. We want to help in the technical standpoint, and the city has said they are open to ideas that could eliminate discharge. That is what this is about.”

Hays County Commissioners Court approved the first Task Order of a new partnership with the Meadows Center for Water and the Environment at Texas State University during last week’s commissioners court meeting.

The agreement with Texas State was made in August forming a partnership for the Meadows Center to conduct research projects on conserving, mitigating, restoring and protecting the natural resources in Hays County. That includes both and surface water resources, important landscapes that provide diverse ecosystems and biodiversity, sensitive habitat for threatened and endangered species, and sustainability of ecosystem services for residents.

The now approved Blanco “No Discharge” Study is the first project executed under the agreement.

“It is mainly for engineering analysis work for options for the city,” Shell said. “…They are not at the point where there is some huge demand on the horizon, so we have some time. We thought this would be a good time to fund some analysis to see what the options are… How much land is needed if this were land application? Or if it is combination reuse, what would that cost and are there customers? We are grateful for the city to be willing to take this time with us.”

The project is estimated to cost $17,250 and should be concluded Jan. 31, 2021.