Sustainable Water
The Sustainably Manage Our Water Resources (SMOWR) priority program focuses on sustainable management of Austin’s water resources including: water, wastewater, reclaimed water, storm drainage systems, floodplains, and the water quality of our lakes, rivers, streams, and aquifers. This priority program recognizes that water resources are vital to Austin’s quality of life and viability as a city. Bringing together existing efforts allows us to move forward with more integrated strategies that span a comprehensive range of water resource issues such as supply, quality, conservation, public health, and recreation
Game Changer
Water Forward Plan
The Water Forward Plan is Austin’s 100-year integrated water resource plan to develop and implement diverse and environmentally conscious water management strategies to adapt to growth, drought, and climate change and ensure a sustainable, resilient, equitable, and affordable water future for our community for the next 100 years. The plan was developed using a holistic, One Water planning approach that balances multiple objectives including water reliability, social, environmental, and economic benefits. The plan’s transformative vision reflects a substantial collaborative effort that took place over the course of three and a half years. The Austin City Council adoption of the Water Forward plan in November 2018 was the culmination of extensive work with the Austin community, a citizen task force, and across multiple City departments, Boards and Commissions, and regional entities.
Water Forward 2018 strategies can be grouped into four categories that are built on a foundation of continued community and stakeholder engagement. These include reducing water demand through strategies like conservation ordinances and incentives that make our landscapes and built environment more water efficient, and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI), which are smart water meters that provide real-time water use information to customers. Austin City Council approved the contract for the My ATX Water program for AMI implementation in 2020; initially with a pilot of 5,000 meters, with a full implementation beginning in the summer of 2021. As of June 2022, over 50,000 of Austin Water’s 250,000 customer meters have been replaced with My ATX Water meters. Implementation continues at roughly 1,200 meters per week. The plan moves reuse forward by implementing onsite reuse systems that recycle water collected at the building-level and connecting developments to our centralized reclaimed water system to replace potable water with non-potable water.
The plan reinforces Austin Water’s commitment to work collaboratively with our regional partners to protect our core Colorado River and Highland Lakes supplies. The plan also includes strategies to build our resiliency to drought. We are in the planning stage for an Aquifer Storage and Recovery (ASR) pilot that will lead to recommendations for a full-scale project that would be functioning by 2040 and would
divert water from our existing supplies, treat the water to drinking water standards, and store that water in a natural underground aquifer so that we would have those supplies available to use in the event of a drought. The first phase of Austin’s ASR project, to identify a location(s) for ASR pilot testing, is anticipated to be complete by 2024. Indirect Potable Reuse is a more near-term emergency drought strategy that could be used in the event of a very severe drought.
One of the recommendations included in the 2018 Water Forward Plan is to update the plan on a regular basis. In alignment with that recommendation, Austin Water has begun an update to the Water Forward Plan. This update will take into account new data from the last several years (including population and water demands), include updated climate and hydrology modeling, use more advanced scenario planning techniques, and include an equity and affordability roadmap and tool. The Equity and Affordability Roadmap (EARM) will outline considerations related to equity and affordability as they apply to the Water Forward plan. The purpose of the EARM is to develop action steps to include those equity considerations in the process to develop the plan. The Equity and Affordability Tool, developed in alignment with the roadmap, will assist in evaluating the distribution of benefits and burdens from plan outcomes on vulnerable communities.
Updates to the Water Forward Plan help ensure that we are making plans based on the most up-to-date data and technology and give us an opportunity to adapt the plan as needed to changing conditions. This first update to the Water Forward Plan is anticipated to be completed in 2024, with regular updates of the plan continuing in the future. The Water Forward community engagement process will include virtual and in person engagement opportunities, including public workshops, ongoing Water Forward Task Force meetings, and other events. A Water Forward Community Ambassador group (CAG) made up of community leaders/members from diverse demographic groups and geographic areas typically underrepresented in water resource planning will provide input into the development of the equity and affordability roadmap and tool.
Highlights
New park in Lower Onion Creek flood buyout area
Austin Water Onsite Water Reuse Program
Austin continues to be an innovator in onsite water reuse. It is the second city in the United States to mandate onsite water reuse for new development projects. Beginning in December 2023, new multi-family, mixed-use, and commercial developments of 250,000 square feet or greater, will be required to collect, treat, and reuse rainwater, A/C condensate, or graywater for non-potable uses such as toilet flushing, irrigation, and cooling. Onsite water reuse systems maximize the use of locally available water sources and can help the city extend its drinking water supplies.
In preparation for the mandate, the city adopted a risk-based regulatory framework in December 2020 that provides design guidance and treatment standards to help streamline the permitting process for these reuse systems. The City Council also approved a pilot incentive program that rebates up to $500,000 per project to encourage voluntary installation of onsite water reuse systems. The pilot program is intended to test out the new regulatory framework and to aid the development community in the transition into the new paradigm of sustainable building design for water reuse.
Austin Water has also put together helpful online resources including a program guidebook, project case studies, and vendor lists. The Utility also developed a useful calculator tool that estimates a project’s non-potable water demands and available onsite supplies that can aid in the optimal design of an onsite water reuse system. Ultimately these tools and resources help those involved in developing new commercial buildings have clear information for the design, decision making, and permitting processes for onsite water reuse systems. Lastly, the city piloted its own onsite blackwater reuse system at its new Permitting and Development Center. The project is now fully operational and is expected to reduce the building’s potable water demand by 75%, saving over 1 million gallons of potable water per year. The successful implementation of this pilot project is a demonstration of how future buildings can be sustainably designed to help generate their own onsite water sources to help conserve potable water supplies. More information about onsite reuse can be found online at www.austintexas.gov/onsite-water-reuse-systems and www.austintexas.gov/WaterForward.
Onsite wastewater reuse facilities at Austin’s Permitting and Development Center
Exterior view of onsite wastewater reuse facilities at Austin’s Permitting and Development Center
Challenges
Impacts of Climate Change on Utility Operations (Austin Water)
Since climate change affects nearly every part of the water cycle, it will continue to put added stress on utility infrastructure, water supplies, core service provision and staff safety, and exacerbate any underlying vulnerabilities. While Austin Water (AW) is already skilled in addressing a variety of risks and hazards, climate change adds new risks to complex practices. To prepare for worsening climate conditions, AW has been working to build knowledge about climate science and is taking an adaptive management approach to address potential impacts to its business functions.
Climate scientists project that due to climate change, the Austin region will see longer periods of drought punctuated by increasingly heavy rain events. The Austin region is already experiencing impacts of changing patterns of droughts and floods. Inflows of water to Austin’s water supply lakes, which are operated and managed by the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA), have been significantly low during recent times. AW has taken steps to help preserve its water supplies in response to drought conditions, which are exacerbated by record heat. In June 2022, the Utility began implementing Stage 1 of its Drought Contingency Plan after combined water storage in Lakes Buchanan and Travis dropped below 1.4 million acre-feet.
To consider climate threats at a utility-scale, AW included climate change as a focus area in its three-year Enterprise Resiliency initiative launched in late 2020. Project teams from across utility program areas met to evaluate climate risks to AW’s assets and recommend mitigation projects. This broad-based approach brought together a wide range of ongoing initiatives and helped with prioritizing recommended projects. In its first year, the team looked at wildfire threats. Currently, the focus is on flooding.
Since climate change effects can manifest in unprecedented ways, they also require creativity and flexibility to go beyond established practices and quickly respond to changing conditions. AW got first-hand experience with this in February 2021, when Winter Storm Uri’s record cold temperatures resulted in a city-wide boil water notice and extended widespread service outages. To support its customers in recovering from the storm, AW:
-
Implemented a series of Council-approved measures to help prevent high water bills
-
Provided up to $1 million in funding to assist income-qualified residents with repairing plumbing damage and leaks resulting from the storm
-
Coordinated with other departments and community organizations to help ensure people had access to potable water; and
-
Provided technical support to apartment complexes so hundreds of residents could have water service restored sooner than anticipated
Going into the future, AW will continue to expand on these initiatives to build the adaptive capacity needed to ensure its water systems, operations, and investments are diversified, flexible, redundant, and resilient to a changing climate.
Impacts of Climate Change (Watershed Protection Department)
Climate scientists project that due to climate change, the Austin region will see longer periods of drought punctuated by increasingly heavy rain events. The Austin region is already experiencing impacts of changing rainfall patterns.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in partnership with many other federal, state, and local agencies, has completed a historical rainfall intensity study called Atlas 14. The Atlas 14 study shows that portions of Texas, including the City of Austin, are more likely to experience larger storms than previously thought. This means that what we used to think of as a 500-year rain event is more likely a 100-year rain event (a 1% chance of happening in any given year as opposed to a 0.2% chance). Rainfall intensities are used by Federal Emergency Management Agency, local communities, and the development community to determine flood risk, design drainage infrastructure, and to make floodplain maps. Rainfall intensities for the State of Texas were last assessed by the United States Geological Survey in 1994. Atlas 14 is an update of this data that incorporates almost a quarter century of rainfall data collected statewide since the last study, up to and including Hurricane Harvey. Our new understanding of flood risk means that more buildings, roadways, and storm drain systems are vulnerable to flooding. Approximately 3% of all buildings in Austin, more than 7,200 homes and businesses, are susceptible to flooding from a 100-year flood.
The City is taking a proactive approach to respond to this more accurate assessment of flood risk and in November 2019 the city updated its floodplain regulations in response to the Atlas 14 study. These regulations provide rules for developing property in the floodplain as well as. The rules help protect the public from flooding and reduce public expense in the aftermath of a flood. It is critical that we continue to ensure that future development is built to be sufficiently resilient to protect the lives and properties of our residents. At the same time, we are currently working to produce new floodplain studies for every watershed in the City. Learn more about this multi-year process at https://www.austintexas.gov/department/flood-risk-and-atlas-14
Lake Travis during 2010’s drought in Central Texas
Program Champions:
Teresa Lutes,
Nick Kincaid
Austin Water
Watershed Protection