Mayor says AT cheaper but opponents disagree
Editor’s Note: This article was written before it was known that the EDA grant will not be available if the city chooses to go with Aqua Texas.
If Aqua Texas handles the treatment of the city’s wastewater, it would save millions of dollars, according to Wimberley Mayor Susan Jaggers. Opponents say the numbers used in a presentation given last week outlining the proposal do not add up.
“Customer rates would be 2.4 times higher under the city-option versus the city/Aqua option,” Jaggers said. “Other key benefits (of the Aqua Texas option) are the city of Wimberley retains the (Certificate of Convenience and Necessity) and local control for responsible downtown growth. Avoids potential plant spills of the wastewater and odor pollution in the park. Avoids discharge of wastewater effluent into the Blanco River or excess runoff into Cypress Creek.”
Those who favor the cityowned system say there are a number of flaws within the mayor’s plan.
“I thought it was inaccurate, misleading and lacked any of the requisite permissions or paths to get to where she was talking about,” Former Mayor Steve Klepfer said. “She comes up with… savings by going to Aqua Texas… our evaluation of it, with backup of every number we have produced, is that it is $2.5 million more expensive. That is a real problem to me when you are 35 percent done with a project to take these kinds of risks. We could very well be building a collection system to nowhere.”
While environmental aspects were brought up throughout the meeting, the main focus of the presentation was on projected costs of both systems. Jaggers showed the projected cost of the current cityowned treatment plan to be a touch over $8 million when all costs are accounted for. Her estimate for the cost of construction if the city were to go with Aqua Texas, and therefore not build the treatment plant, was $6.2 million.
The Aqua Texas plan would require and additional line for purple pipe to bring effluent to Blue Hole Park. Alan Plummer Engineer Steve Coonan estimated the cost to be $750,000, which is included in the overall cost estimate, but the pipe has yet to be engineered or put out for bid.
The chart Jaggers showed for the cost of the Aqua Texas proposal shows a “to be determined” amount for the cost of terminating the Black Castle contract. The $3 million contract is currently on hold as the city makes the decision on which way to go. The city has already paid about $340,000 to Black Castle, and has been billed for almost $750,000. No amount for this line item is budgeted into the $6.2 million estimate for construction but whatever the cost ends up being it would be an expense the city must take on.
“We have reviewed the proposed modifications,” Coonan said in a letter to the city looking over the proposed changes. “In our professional opinion, these modifications are all technically feasible and will accomplish the City’s goals of providing wastewater management services to the Central Wimberley area as well as providing irrigation water for the soccer fields at Blue Hole Park. Furthermore, it is our opinion that the proposed modifications will be protective of the special environment that exists in Wimberley.”
The funding for the project is essentially identical with the exception of the Way Foundation’s $1 million grant, which is only available for the city-owned treatment plant, but not for the Aqua Texas option. (See page 1 for update)
Jaggers said that the Texas Water Development Board is “fully aware” of the potential change in scope of the project, but the city does not yet have written confirmation that the loan proceeds will still be available for use if the city decides to go with Aqua Texas. The same is true for the $1 million grant from the Economic Development Agency.
The funding comparison shows the city-owned option using more than $500,000 of city reserves to pay for the full amount of the contract. The Aqua Texas option would only cost $68,950, but again, this is without including the cost of terminating the Black Castle contract. Klepfer said there are other costs he doesn’t see factored into the equation like irrigation infrastructure in Blue Hole Regional Park, site mitigation for the land already cleared for the wastewater treatment plant and additional legal fees. He also said that he believes the cost estimates for purple pipe, boring under Cypress Creek and additional engineering are underestimated in the mayor’s plan.
“When I look at this as a business man, what I see is a person who kept changing the numbers to make them look like what they wanted them to be,” Klepfer said. “ There is no back up on any of this stuff.”
The biggest difference in the total costs comes in the operating budget. Jaggers asked for a new estimate on the yearly cost for the city to run the wastewater treatment plant. The estimate increased from what was previously thought citing the addition of UV lights to better disinfect effluent. The costs were now estimated at $233,000 per year. Aqua Texas would charge $52,000 per year to treat the effluent and there would still be additional city sewer-line maintenance that brings the total to around $72,000 per year, according to Jaggers. Jaggers said that this could save the city $4 million over the 30-year life of the loan.
With the totals Jaggers came up with, the rate study previously produced for the city was updated and shows that the cost per user of the sewer system is significantly lower when Aqua Texas is the provider of treatment.