Kyle Said No Aqua Texas: Shouldn’t Wimberley?

Nineteen years ago, the City of Kyle contracted with Aqua Texas to build and operate their wastewater treatment plant. Eleven years later approximately a million gallons of raw sewage leaked into an unnamed tributary of Plum Creek. According to a TCEQ report ”… stream quality was impacted by low dissolved oxygen levels, high E. Coli levels, sewage odors, brown colored foam, and high ammonia-nitrogen levels.” About 3,000 fish were killed.

A year later there was a billing dispute. Kyle claimed Aqua was overcharging. Aqua filed suit and lost but continued to claim the city owed money. Then, in November of 2012, another discharge incident occurred, this time 100,000 gallons of partially treated wastewater containing “floating solids.” In January 2013, Aqua filed a second suit including a claim that the city’s leaky collection system was responsible for overloading the plant during heavy rains and that the citizens of that community were clogging critical plant components by creating sewage with too much “rag” content. The suit was settled out of court.

At the last Wimberley City Council meeting, an Aqua Texas supporter stated that Aqua Texas is currently treating Kyle’s wastewater. That is inaccurate. According to Jason Biemer, Treatment Operations Division Manager for the City of Kyle, Kyle took over responsibility for treating its wastewater from Aqua Texas on October 1, 2015, and has continued to treat it ever since. The City of Kyle spent many years and lots of city funds to say NO to Aqua Texas. Ask our mayor and city council why they think Wimberley’s experience will be different. We have an opportunity to say NO now before getting entangled in costly legal disputes with a deep-pocketed company intent reaching its tentacles even deeper into our beloved valley.

Christine Middleton