All we ever hear from Dripping Springs is that its intentions are not to discharge sewage effluent into Onion Creek with the discharge permit they seek. I’m sure they are telling you the same thing, that you should resolve to support this because “with all this beneficial reuse we’re getting signed up we don’t intend to discharge, we just need the flexibility of a disposal/discharge pipe to Onion Creek..”
Understand the facts before taking the bait!
The ordinance passed last November says participate or pay fee towards 210 beneficial reuse; if the City does not use those funds for wet weather contingencies (subsurface drip irrigation and storage ponds), then that just means more sewage effluent pumped into the creek during those times.
The beneficial reuse contract is extremely lax and non-committal. Either side can shut down at any time with no consequences, resulting in discharge into Onion Creek.
Involves huge amount of buried pipeline infrastructure which will ultimately leak and fail, again resulting in need to discharge.
During wet weather, developments will not take effluent and the City will need to discharge during these conditions. You can never keep up in storage ponds, without also having drip irrigation fields; again, this results in more need to discharge into Onion.
Residents may complain about the smell or harmful effects of sewage effluent sprayed and demand it be shut off, resulting in discharge into Onion.
A pipe to Onion Creek is a means of emergency discharge of raw sewage in event of a catastrophic emergency. This would completely destroy Onion Creek!
Future councils would not be bound to pursue beneficial reuse contracts. They could change the ordinance or not enforce the contracts, and just increase their volume with TCEQ!
If this moves forward, what do you think that disposal pipe to Onion will be flowing in 5, 10 or 15 years?
Make the smart decision not to support destroying Onion Creek with sewage effluent.
Onion Creek is a prime example of the very reason that people want to come see and enjoy our Central Texas Hill Country!
Wes Pitts
