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Austin Water Issues Boil Water Notice

3adays

By 3adays
in Daily Texan

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Michael Knight
Michael Knight
BrickHorn
BrickHorn

There is no gas shortage.  We have plenty at the pumps.  People just need to be sure to boil their gasoline for a full three minutes before use.

atomheartbevo
atomheartbevo

stole from reddit Austin but it’s appropriate. 

APMP

APMP 688

Posted
Posted

While there are probably several things that probably could have been done differently, I guess I can give credit where it might be due. If reports are accurate about the city no longer being upside down on water production capacity after less than 24 hours of conservation by residents, even though all three plants continue to operate at one-third capacity, that means a single plant operating at 100% capacity can more or less serve the city (let's assume all plants have roughly equal capacities).

Credit for the double redundancy.

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Deej

Deej 76971

Posted
Posted

The city is a joke. Council likes to act like some sort of big city player, but doesn't do shit to actually keep up the infrastructure that the city it's becoming needs. Where is all the increased property tax money going? Roads suck, water treatment sucks, not enough police, firefighters, and EMS. Somebody is having their pockets lined, and if you don't live in Tarrytown or Pemberton, your needs don't matter.

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Paper_jam

Paper_jam 838

Posted
Posted

There was a huge political fight 8-10 years ago over whether to build one of those treatment plants. I guess it turns out that we did need it.

As to the current crisis, I don't see this problem so much as an issue of capacity, as one where the design parameters of the current plants were set based on the normally-decent-quality of the intake water from Lake Austin/Travis. When I toured the Davis plant, although it was many years ago, and I was surprised how "little" treatment was actually needed. Basically just a couple of big clarifying basins and some filters, as I recall (plus the chlorination). But if the intake water is loaded with fine solids, it takes longer for those clarifiers to settle the solids out, and I'm sure the flow is quickly reduced as stuff builds up in the filters. Hence the reduction in clean water output.

 

 

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jimmyjazz

jimmyjazz 46259

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

And things like the Artist-in-Residence being embedded with the fucking watershed department.  Her salary maybe under $10,000 or $15,000 (and that's besides the fact that she's not from Austin, and has never lived in Austin),

It's not a terribly important part of your rant, but it sparked some curiosity on my part so I looked her up.  She does live in Austin, and her CV shows work in the city as far back as 2015.  Also, the program will embed artists in many different departments -- it just happened that "Watershed" was the first up.

Plus, she goes by the first name "Rehab", so that seems quite appropriate for Austin.

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ftf82

ftf82 486

Posted
Posted (edited)

Why isn’t Morrison’s vote against Water Treatment Plant 4 in 2011 getting more play? The City was already hellbent on increasing density downtown at that point and selling out to the tech industry, and she comes out against basic infrastructure for health and safety like increased water capacity? I mean I get, kind of, her opposition to development in the center city because of her background in nymby Austin neighbood groups.  But this quote should derail her campaign as City Council malpractice

 

"As for the City of Austin, I opposed the construction of Water Treatment Plant #4, because I do not support building expensive infrastructure that could be rendered unnecessary for many years through conservation efforts. I support the implementation of the recommendations of the Water Conservation Task Force to reduce the city’s daily water consumption to 140 GPD and believe this goal is achievable. "

Edited by ftf82
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ftf82

ftf82 486

Posted
Posted

This was posted on Austin Reddit.  Check out the difference in color of the water in Travis and Lake Austin.  Obviously because it comes out of the bottom of Travis where it’s settled, but that shit isn’t settling in Lake Austin anytime soon.  Lake Travis is enormous. It’s going to take a while for this stuff to go away if they keep any gates open.  

 

https://youtu.be/qRWo8xxZpNc

 

 

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atomheartbevo

atomheartbevo 89844

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

It's not a terribly important part of your rant, but it sparked some curiosity on my part so I looked her up.  She does live in Austin, and her CV shows work in the city as far back as 2015.  Also, the program will embed artists in many different departments -- it just happened that "Watershed" was the first up.

Plus, she goes by the first name "Rehab", so that seems quite appropriate for Austin.

She must have moved. I was going off of this interview from last year where she said she lived in RR, and moved there two years before.  

https://www.austinmonthly.com/AM/July-2017/Meet-the-City-of-Austins-First-Official-Artist-in-Residence/index.php?platform=hootsuite 

 

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Texas Jeff

Texas Jeff 1945

Posted
Posted
40 minutes ago, ftf82 said:

This was posted on Austin Reddit.  Check out the difference in color of the water in Travis and Lake Austin.  Obviously because it comes out of the bottom of Travis where it’s settled, but that shit isn’t settling in Lake Austin anytime soon.  Lake Travis is enormous. It’s going to take a while for this stuff to go away if they keep any gates open.  

 

https://youtu.be/qRWo8xxZpNc

 

 

When that drone video shows the back side of the dam, it looks like water is seeping through it.  Is that really happening or just my imagination?

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KaiserSoze

KaiserSoze 998

Posted
Posted
Political rant.
1.  How have we not come up with a better water treatment system before now?  I get that many times the City Council caters to very small groups who make the effort to show up and vote, but this should be one of those looming issues, given our growth rate.  They built a very expensive library (with incredibly shitty parking), and part of it was "we are going to be a world-class city, and we are going to need this library in the future, and we need to show the world who we are and impress them."    And things like the Artist-in-Residence being embedded with the fucking watershed department.  Her salary maybe under $10,000 or $15,000 (and that's besides the fact that she's not from Austin, and has never lived in Austin), but all of this stupid shit piles up, and we are left without money for more important things.
Whatever goodwill maybe generated by things like the library, and whatever cozy feelings generated by the mural that our "artist" made for the Watershed Department goes away when people are boiling their drinking water and being told to go light on doing laundry and dishes.  Companies aren't impressed with an expensive library when people are wondering if their tap water will give them the shits.
2.  I want to know long city officials (Mayor, City Council) have known about any problems.  This is not a national security issue, it was due to historic flooding (and possible mismanagement in the past)  and I'm fairly certain that Sunday night, Austin Water did not suddenly realize "oh holy shit, we can't keep up with filtering and we are only pumping 108 million gallons into the reservoirs a day and residents are using 120 million gallons."
We did not go from a state of "everything is fine" to "boil your water and reduce your water usage by 10-15%" within 12 hours, and more than a few area journalists are stating that the problems were known about well before Sunday night/Monday morning.  
If they come out Friday or Saturday and ask people and companies to cut back on water consumption, we don't reach a point where on Monday afternoon, Austin Water is tossing out the prospect of running out of water.
If Adler and the City Council members knew about this issue before Sunday night/Monday morning, and were covering it up for whatever reason (Formula 1 anybody?) until it could no longer be covered up, then their asses need to be shown the door in their next election.
Jesus Christ you're a whiny bitch
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Judge Roybeanbag

Judge Roybeanbag 11821

Posted
Posted (edited)
9 hours ago, Iowa Horn said:

These lake levels aren't unprecedented.  Yes, demand is higher than the last time it was this high ('06-'07?) - but I would hope this was not unforeseen and some sort of multi-day/week flaw in our water system that has just been glossed over.

Not to defend the city of Austin management (impossible), but the issue here was that LBJ hasn't seen a flood influx this bad from the Llano and Sandy Creek since the 1930s - there was a bad one in the '50s, and in 1978, but the most recent floods (07) were mostly further downstream.  So the sediment flowing into LBJ and subsequently downstream through wide open Wirtz and Starcke dams hasn't been seen in modern times.  So the city just wasn't equipped to deal with it.  A real "fourth" water treatment plant sure would have helped.  As would decent communications.

Edited by Judge Roybeanbag
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Deej

Deej 76971

Posted
Posted
7 minutes ago, Judge Roybeanbag said:

  As would decent communications.

Hey, now...I'm sure the council members had their aides scootering between them and the folks at the water treatment plants, in order to handle the flow of information effectively. 

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Judge Roybeanbag

Judge Roybeanbag 11821

Posted
Posted
Just now, Deej said:

Hey, now...I'm sure the council members had their aides scootering between them and the folks at the water treatment plants, in order to handle the flow of information effectively. 

Yeah.  Part of the reason I had to edit above a couple of times is because we have an approved "Water Treatment Plant #4" but we can't even be honest about that.  There are only 3 treatment plants.

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Liquor and Poker

Liquor and Poker 3659

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

I want to rant for a two posts, one technical, one political.

Technical first.

1. First, I under the whole concept of too much silt-filled water coming in too fast and having to clean the filters and not being able to keep up with the filtration.  I also understand that they have to keep a certain pressure on the system for things like fire fighting, and so not-so-treated water is getting through.   This is the thing I have the least problem with (I think it should be a better system, but that's for the political post). I also understand that there haven't been any failed tests, but that they are worried that they will fail some tests.

2. This is the one I have the bigger problem with.  I did not pick up a copy of the newspaper, but I noticed in a store that yesterday's Statesman had a front-page article about customers being asked to cut back water consumption (this was probably printed before the boil notice dropped).  Austin Water began raising alarms yesterday that people were using more water from the reservoirs than was being pumped into the reservoir, and that the water supply could run out.  

It was something like "consumers are drawing/using 120 million gallons a day, and we are only able to pump 105 million gallons a day into the reservoirs"

What in the hell is up with this part?  Again, some of this will be for the political post, but we went from somebody telling the newspaper to urge people to cut back, to a boil notice, to a "welp, either cut back your water or the supply will run out!"

I would like to think those reservoirs have a few days worth of water in them, but either way, if LCRA can measure water levels down to the hundredth, Austin Water should be able to give us more than 12 hours notice that we need to drastically cut back.

To say there won't be water in the system if we don't cut back is kind of a Big Fucking Deal.

 

The LCRA and CoA has been banging that “we’s gunna run outta water” drum since at least the late 1980s.  It’s the only song they know.  

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SquishMitten

SquishMitten 10446

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

It was something like "consumers are drawing/using 120 million gallons a day, and we are only able to pump 105 million gallons a day into the reservoirs"

What in the hell is up with this part?  Again, some of this will be for the political post, but we went from somebody telling the newspaper to urge people to cut back, to a boil notice, to a "welp, either cut back your water or the supply will run out!"

I would like to think those reservoirs have a few days worth of water in them, but either way, if LCRA can measure water levels down to the hundredth, Austin Water should be able to give us more than 12 hours notice that we need to drastically cut back.

To say there won't be water in the system if we don't cut back is kind of a Big Fucking Deal.

 

Haven't seen it explicitly said like this, but I'm giving the benefit of the doubt because I believe it's what they mean... that deficit isn't normal nor was it anticipated. Only being able to pump 105 million a day is a big reduction because the water is taking so much longer than normal to treat. Because the water is so dirty at initial intake - seemingly the dirtiest they've ever dealt with - they legitimately may not have known how much longer it would take to filter. Once they realized it, they tried to make it work better. Once they realized they couldn't make it better/faster, they came out with the boil & reduce notices. Those two notices have multiple purposes:


1) A boil notice has the immediate effect of reducing water use. Think how much less water is being used right now solely because people are afraid to drink/cook with it. 
2) A reduction notice has that same effect. 
3) Because of a) pressure concerns, and b) a need to provide water (can you imagine the panic if we all of a sudden didn't have anything coming out of our taps, filling the toilets, showers, etc?), they were forced to keep pushing water into their reservoirs without it being treated to the normal standards. 
4) Because of #3, the second purpose of the boil notice becomes relevant. Since it all comes through the same pipes, the requirement to provide water for everything other than drinking purposes outweighs the need for purity and creates a risk that the water may eventually arise to a level of contamination that could make you sick.
 

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