Texas mulls plan to dump treated sewage into lakes

The plan, up for preliminary consideration Wednesday at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, would lift a 23-year-old ban on discharges of effluent into the Highland Lakes, which provide drinking water to more than a million people.

The cities of Leander and Granite Shoals asked the state to lift the ban in part because it's cheaper to dump the waste in the lakes rather than use it for irrigation or other land-based applications.

Proponents of the plan say the plants will help foster economic growth, that "reclaimed" water from sewage treatment plants is safe and that it will help refill lakes that have been stressed by a blistering drought.

Granite Shoals, located on the shores of Lake LBJ west of Austin, could save $4 million by discharging its effluent into the lake rather than installing the infrastructure needed for land-based wastewater treatment, according to city Mayor Frank Reilly.

Reilly called it an environmentally wise use of the treated sewage because it would go back into the water supply.

"It reuses something valuable, which is in short supply," he said. "It stops the waste of the water."

But opponents of the proposal, including affected property owners, several Austin-area legislators, the Sierra Club and the Lower Colorado River Authority — which sells water from the lakes — say the added waste would ruin the pristine water.

Ray Gay, 75, said he's already thinking about moving away if the TCEQ lifts the ban, which could take up to a year or longer.

Gay pumps his household water, up a long snaking pipe, straight from Lake Travis on the edge of his property. Using minimal filtration and reverse osmosis treatment, he and his wife Barbara drink it, bathe in it and wash their dishes with it. When the grandkids come over, they swim in it, too.