The Latest on Water for Blanco
10/4/2023
The City of Blanco and The Texas Water Company today released the following joint statement:
“The City of Blanco and The Texas Water Company concluded an amicable session of mediation related to ongoing water transportation and other matters on Tuesday, September 5, 2023. At the conclusion of the mediation, a short-term agreement was signed by the City and TWC. Both parties came away encouraged by the progress made, and the good faith efforts shown, towards improving communications and resolving technical issues to ensure ongoing, uninterrupted wholesale water delivery to the City, and they look forward to resolving any other pending matters in subsequent mediated negotiations.”
Any questions concerning this statement should be directed to the Mayor or City Administrator, City of Blanco.
THE LATEST ON WATER FOR BLANCO
As we all continue to pray for rain and anticipate at least some seasonal relief from this drought, I want each citizen to know that the City of Blanco and its leadership are working hard to secure and safeguard water for this community. I am happy to report that we are making progress, and foresee other, continuing opportunities and challenges as we proceed. Here’s a quick update:
WHOLESALE WATER SUPPLY
After a first and lengthy round of mediation with our GBRA water transporter, The Texas Water Company, I can confidently report that Blanco’s water supply is today more secure than at any time since the City first helped develop the TWC pipeline in 2001. The City and TWC have just issued the following statement:
“The City of Blanco and The Texas Water Company concluded an amicable session of mediation related to ongoing water transportation and other matters on Tuesday, September 5, 2023. At the conclusion of the mediation, a short-term agreement was signed by the City and TWC. Both parties came away encouraged by the progress made, and the good faith efforts shown, towards improving communications and resolving technical issues to ensure ongoing, uninterrupted wholesale water delivery to the City, and they look forward to resolving any other pending matters in subsequent mediated negotiations.”
With this interim agreement, for the first time, the City feels comfortable with its short-term commitment from our wholesale water transporter that:
1) Keeps the “Stallion Tank” that feeds our system at a minimum of 8 feet depth. You may recall that these levels fell back in early July, briefly putting the City in Stage 6 restrictions. Now, we have a firm commitment to avoid this in the near future, barring acts of God, other force majeures, and bona fide emergencies.
2) Sets objective standards for the City to pump up to 500,000 gallons every day, once we install a device that allows us to regulate our flow rate. Note that Blanco uses about 320,000 gallons per day on average, so these 500,000 gallons give us plenty of room to grow.
3) Sets us to engage in another round of mediation with TWC to hopefully resolve once and for all pending issues with them that have lingered over our heads for many years now. We hope this will be resolved favorably.
This GBRA water supply initially served as our backup supply, and only recently became primary while our water plant is offline. It is important to note, however, that this water supply serves much of Bulverde and numerous other communities in our area.
The City believes that it has a reliable source of water for the near term and a solid plan to secure that water for the longer term, and our relationship with TWC has greatly improved. We sincerely hope this progress will continue.
WATER PLANT
Progress on the water plant, which would allow us again to use water from the River, has been too slow since this project started in late 2019. There’s no other way to say it but we are working diligently to untangle and overcome some severe complications and get things on the right track. It’s been frustrating to say the least, and sadly there’s no magic wand to fix it.
A bit of background: our water plant, which draws from the Blanco River just upstream from the State Park, was quite outdated. Back in 2019 the project was started to renovate it, with the help of a Texas Water Development Board grant and loan.
Of course, looking back, perhaps at no time in recent history has there been a worse time to begin an industrial project like this. Of all the issues brought about by COVID supply chain problems in 2020-21, not to mention the effects of the pandemic disease itself, none were more significant than the supply of industrial components. Just these last couple of months, we are finally, all these years later, anticipating delivery of a last, key piece of equipment necessary for running the plant.
Still, we have then just recently encountered yet another setback with the discovery of a crucial engineering design flaw, which was discovered as our operations team reviewed the plant for possible startup. This is not a small problem and will take considerable time and money to fix.
I can’t say more due to pending litigation, other than that we are on top of it and fighting for Blanco’s right and restitution and are confident in the outcome. We hope the plant will be back online in 2024.
Note that even if the plant were online now, with the river as low as it is, we’d still be relying on our wholesale water supplier.
WATER EXPLORATION & DEVELOPMENT
I can’t say anything specific here except to say that the City is presently pursuing other, real sources of plentiful, sustainable water, and making great progress. Any of these possible projects would be complicated and potentially risky, and certainly expensive. But we are determined to explore all additional, feasible water supply (and conservation!) alternatives. We hope to be able to share initial details on our progress in the next few weeks.
That is all for now. Thanks again for your support and continuing input and engagement!
Mayor Mike Arnold
Burn Ban & Fireworks