If past votes are a sign of things to come, the Austin City Council will approve on Thursday spending $300 million on the controversial Water Treatment Plant No. 4.
This money has already been approved by the Council, already been appropriated so this is just a combination of several contract that will be necessary to complete the plant,” said Austin's Mayor Lee Leffingwell.
Work on the Northwest Austin plant is already under way, and Thursday’s vote will approve the rest of the allocated money.
So far, the City has spent a little more than $150 million on initial design and construction of the plant located at the intersection of RM 620 and RR 2222 .
Once complete, the plant will suck 300 million gallons of water per day out of Lake Travis, treat it and send it to Austin Water Utility customers.
The controversy surrounding the plant has been strong since voters initially gave the City approval for the plant back in 1984.
Opponents of the plant claim the City can avoid spending the half-billion dollars by concentrating on water conservation efforts. They also claim the plant will cause environmental damage to the area.
"Even as our population has grown our water use has gone down. If water use has gone down we don’t need a water treatment plant,” says Colin Clark with Save Our Springs Alliance.
Austin’s mayor counts himself among those who said Austin must build this plant in order to ensure a reliable supply of water in the future.
“We have to have it not only for drinking water by also for public safety, we have to be able to put out fires,” said Leffingwell.
In past votes, the Council’s vote has been 4-3 with Council members Chris Riley, Laura Morrison and Bill Spelman voting against the plant.
Thursday’s vote will be the biggest vote to date regarding the water treatment plant.
In past votes, Council has approved each individual contract. However, Thursday’s vote lumps many of those contracts together in order to keep construction on time, according to city officials.
Save Our Springs Alliance and Environment Texas have filed two federal lawsuits trying to stop construction of Water Treatment Plant No. 4.
Still, the City said both of those lawsuits are baseless and that construction will continue.
