Science panel delays decision on WTP4

Members of the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve Scientific Advisory Committee spent the better part of two hours Monday listening to city staff, led by Chris Lippe of Austin Water Utility and Environmental Conservation Manager Willy Conrad, outline the alternative site evaluation for Water Treatment Plant 4 and the status of current Black-Capped Vireo land. But the panel postponed making a recommendation on the city’s proposal to build the plant on 45 acres of the Cortaña tract near Lake Travis.

Consultant Joe Lessard, a former Austin Assistant City Manager, pointed out that mitigation of any future wastewater plant site – at the headwaters of Bull Creek or on a piece of the nearby Cortaña tract – would have been a foregone conclusion if the city and county had completed the full Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. The preserve – a pristine 30,428 acres set aside for wildlife habitat – exists to serve as a mitigation measure for the development in the area, whether that’s private or city development.

Picking the right site for Water Treatment Plant 4 might be the tree, Lessard told the group, but added that the committee needs to keep its eye on the forest.

"If that land had been put into place, and you had met the permit requirements, this would have been much easier. There wouldn’t have been any question that the mitigation was in place," Lessard said. "That isn’t the case."

The problem, Lessard pointed out, is that the city and county are far from completing the preserve, with no hope of reaching the habitat goals set out in the original permit. Black-Capped Vireo habitat is simply a whole lot harder to create than the city thought, Lessard said. Right now the city has 150 acres of habitat, with a promise to add another 400 acres. That doesn’t come close to what is necessary, Lessard said.

The Little Barton Creek tract, at 928 acres, which the city promises to designate as part of the preserve, could add to the Vireo habitat, but it’s uncertain at this time whether the land is ideal for such use, Conrad said.

Even if every available acre of potential Vireo land was acquired in the targeted zone – land with the right topography, geography and fauna – the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve would have only 1,200 of the needed 2,000 acres, Lessard said. The county faces a similar circumstance for the even more fragile Golden-Cheeked Warbler habitat and the 18 karst caves that must be acquired under the permit.

The city has completed its purchase of land for the BCP, but Travis County still needs to acquire another 2,700 acres. And that will be difficult with rising land prices. Land that went for $1,000 an acre when the BCP was permitted now goes for $28,000 an acre. At today’s prices, buying out the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve would cost $78 million.

The county doesn’t lack willing sellers; it lacks money. Lessard said fees are only now catching up with the revenue necessary to purchase land, but that flow of money is not the lump sum necessary to purchase the land as quickly as it needs to be purchased. At the current rate of revenue, it would take the county 10 years to complete the preserve.

The Balcones Canyonlands Preserve can’t wait 10 years, he said. Land is disappearing. The better choice would be three, four or even five years, if the deals could be cut to find the money.

The scientific advisory committee was clearly motivated by Lessard’s speech, offering a lengthy line of questioning on what it would take to get the preserve completed. Members, though, also were concerned about the process of the plant site selection, wanting to strip out the economic factors and simply weigh the environmental cost-benefit analysis of the various plant sites. Would the environmental costs of the Cortaña site outweigh the $15 million the city would have to spend to buy a site from a private developer? Lippe promised to re-run the numbers and provide fuller data to the committee to weigh the issues in the final site selection.

Committee members were incredulous the city could not find more than five sites. But as city and county staff members pointed out, the opportunity for sites is severely constrained by both access to water and the need for intake tunnels and transmission lines. The committee will meet again before the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve Coordinating Committee meets on August 21. The BCP Citizens Advisory Committee meets tonight to discuss the issue.

©2006 In Fact News, Inc. All rights reserved.

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