Posted: Thu, 28 Jul 2011 04:53 PM - 13,695 Readers
By: Sarah Coppola
The decades-long debate about whether Austin needs another water treatment plant revved up again Thursday as City Council members tussled over possibly postponing the project, which is under construction near Lake Travis.
A more than four-hour discussion was punctuated by tense exchanges among Mayor Lee Leffingwell , a plant supporter and Council Member Bill Spelman , who voted against building the plant in fall 2009 .
"I could not possibly disagree with you more," Spelman said when the mayor remarked that delaying the project would be "financially irresponsible."
"I couldn't disagree with you more," a visibly perturbed Leffingwell shot back.
Up for a vote was a resolution written by Spelman and Council Members Laura Morrison and Chris Riley that asks staffers to estimate the cost of postponing the plant five or 10 years and of beefing up Austin's water conservation efforts. It also asks staffers to issue no "notices to proceed" over the next month . Such notices allow additional phases of construction work to begin.
The council approved the resolution 5-2 , with Leffingwell and Council Member Mike Martinez voting no.
Martinez called the resolution an exercise in "political theater" — seeking information not to weigh fresh facts but to bolster a particular viewpoint, he said.
"Intuitively, I already know it's going to cost way too much money to put this project on hold," Martinez said. "When we get this information back, no one is going to agree on the cost estimates."
Austin Water Utility officials will have until Aug. 18 to come up with the estimates.
Though the resolution does not commit the city to halt the water plant project, much of Thursday's discussion centered on the pros and cons of doing just that.
It began with Leffingwell calling up to the podium in City Council chambers several water utility and financial staffers to question them about the cost of mothballing the plant.
The staffers said Austin has already spent or committed by contract to spend about $430 million out of the $508 million that the whole project is expected to cost.
A delay, the staffers said, could spur several complications and cost Austin millions: to close down work on the site and secure it; deal with lawsuits that might ensue from canceling contracts; and build new lines or stations to pump water from the city's other two plants and make sure Northwest Austin neighborhoods have sufficient water service.
Bill Newman , the city's longtime bond attorney, said he was worried that bond rating agencies would downgrade the city's stellar bond ratings — not just for water utility projects but other projects that have nothing to do with water — which he said could cost the city and taxpayers millions more in higher interest payments.
Leffingwell said he was nervous about how even questioning the project midstream would look to investors.
The resolution "is an exercise that has no purpose to me. I think it's very dangerous," he said. "I've been voicing concerns for weeks now about how this appears in terms of how the city is run. We're presenting a dangerous image to those who determine our financial future," such as bond rating agencies, he said.
But Spelman posed his own questions and sought to make a case that a delay could save Austinites money by preventing water rates from going up dramatically. Bond rating agencies would respond favorably to the city's efforts to keep its water rates reasonable and not take on such a large amount of debt to build the plant, he said.
Water utility officials have said the plant will increase water rates 8.6 percent over the next five years; Spelman and environmental activists have disputed that figure, saying the increase will likely be higher.
Of the roughly 15 residents who spoke to the council Thursday , most favored stopping the plant work, saying it isn't needed and that the plant will discourage water conservation because the water utility can only pay off the cost of building the facility if it increases rates and if people use more water.
"Water sales are dropping through the floor," said Bill Bunch , executive director of the Save Our Springs Alliance and a longtime opponent of the plant. "So the fundamental assumptions driving this plant are dead wrong." Austin's water use peaked in 2001 and hasn't reached that level since, even as the population has steadily grown.
The City Council agreed to begin construction of the plant on a 4-3 vote in October 2009 . One member of the majority, Randi Shade , recently lost a re-election bid, and activists opposed to the plant are hopeful that her replacement, Kathie Tovo , can tip the balance in their favor.
Tovo said Thursday that determining the cost of delaying the plant is worthwhile — but that she hasn't decided whether she'll support a delay.
"I don't think any of us knows what the data will reveal, but I think looking at the information and evaluating the path we're on...is fiscally prudent."
