The newspaper practicum class held a panel discussion Nov. 20 in the Shawnee Theatre of the Clark Student Center with city officials to talk about the ongoing drought and how the city and the university are collaborating to conserve water. The speakers were News Channel 6 Chief Meteorologist Ken Johnson, Utilities Operations Manager Daniel Nix, City Manager Darron Leiker and Director of Public Works Russell Schreiber.
Q: What is it going to take for residents to realize that this is a drought disaster? What is the big effect that will happen if we do not take the necessary steps to help conserve?
A: Leiker – I do think that folks realize how dire this situation is and it’s evident that by the water they’re helping us conserve. On an average year, we treat and produce 8 billion gallons of water a year and we’re on track to hit probably about six or six and a half billion gallons and perhaps maybe even less than that. So we think we’ll save about two billion gallons that we would normally use so that shows that people really understand and are doing a good job out there to conserve water and helping us within this situation.
Q: So will two billion gallons a year prevent us from going into the 5th stage?
A: Leiker – No, I do not believe we can conserve ourselves out of this drought. It’s simply impossible, but keep in mind we can’t control how much water goes in those lakes and how much water comes out through evaporation. We can only control how much we pull out. So that’s why it’s important and that’s why conservation has to be key. That’s also why we’re working on other water sources and that’s also why our meteorologist will tell us that we need a lot of rain to really bring us out of this drought. Conservation will not do it.
Q: Students tend to not take this seriously. What is it going to take for them to realize that what is going on can affect them? Will they have additional water charges on their tuition fees?
A: Ultimately, students will be affected down the line because as water gets more expensive for Midwestern State University and they receive impacts to athletic fields and such, those costs will be passed on to students. But the immediacy of it, what you’re doing here tonight, is great because it really highlights the importance of what we’re doing here and it’s great to see so many students and faculty and other visitors here to gain a better insight on what we’re doing here and how we’re trying to bring additional supplies online.
Q: Do you think tripling the water surcharge will help residents conserve water?
A: Schreiber – I think it has. When the surcharges increased dramatically we saw a substantial reduction in our day-to-day use of water consumption. Not only through the city but also with all our water we sell to wholesale customers. The surcharge is just a way to incentivize people to be more conscientious about their water use. I think it’s being effective, to be honest. It’s not a money-maker for the city by any stretch of the imagination. Quite honestly, all of our wholesale customers have adopted that same kind of practice. They have all initiated some surcharges to basically incentivize their customers to reduce their water consumption. We probably serve 150 thousand people (104 thousand inside the city and 40,000 – 50,000 to our wholesale customers). Every time someone can save an extra liter of water or an extra quart it adds up.
Q: Could you inform us about the emergency pipeline?
A: Leiker – What we will do entails about a 12-mile pipeline that will be connected to the River Road Wastewater Treatment Plant at the northeast side of the city. The twelve-mile pipeline back to the west of Cypress Water Treatment Plant is where the water will be treated three additional times. That water will meet or exceed all state and federal clean drinking water standards, and will provide about a net of five million gallons a day for us. To put that into perspective right now that would be about a third of our daily demands. So it’s a big number for us that will help. Currently that water from our wastewater treatment plant is really wasted. It’s not recycled; it’s running down the river and so we see this as a great opportunity to recycle and use the water in a smart fashion. Again, making sure it’s absolutely safe and absolutely clean to drink. So we’ve been working on that for the past several months. We started work with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, that’s the EPA of the state of Texas if you will. Who will receive the clean water drinking standards if you will. We’ve been working with them for about two years on this project and it has been very complicated. It’s about a $13 million project that should be complete around January and then we’ll have to go through a 45-day testing period. There, the state will make us run that system and we will not put it in the distribution system just yet for drinking, but essentially we have to run the system to make sure it either meets or exceeds every test for disinfection, treatment, and that to basically prove that it’s going to do everything that these visibility studies say that it’s going to do. Then the state will give us the green light to flip that switch and enter the water into the system. Our goal is to have it online and in the system by late spring and early summer.
Q: Where does the money for the pipeline come from?
A: Leiker – Not taxpayers and not the state. The way our budget works is that we have a water fund that we keep separate. It’s like a separate checking account from other city funds. We operate the water fund as a business fund or as an enterprise fund. That means all the water bills that we all pay, all the businesses’ pay supports their operation and maintenance for the water fund. We do not use property tax money or state money or grant money. So we had to issue some bonds to do that $13 million that will be paid off over 20 years or so. To bring in the additional revenue from that debt ceiling we raised water rates about 5% on retail water rates and that was done this summer.
Schreiber – An important thing to add to that is that the pipeline is a temporary pipeline and we also have a permanent reuse project. The pipes that we purchased, we sized the pipe so that we can use it in the permanent project. So of that $13 million, $6 or $6.5 million is actually pipe cost that we will recover. So for instance the emergency project actually only cost us about $6 or $6.5 million and we got the pipe for the permanent project.
Q: Elaborate on the permanent project.
A: Schreiber – Well we have to secure a permit from the TCEQ. That involves quite extensive modeling of the lake. We need to know what kind of impact the treatment will have on that lake. We obviously do not want to damage our major lake that we receive water from, so we do extensive modeling and we want to know how much phosphorous material and nutrient we need to put the water through at the River Road Wastewater Plant. Eventually the River Road Wastewater Plant will treat between 10-11 million gallons of water per day. We’d rather recover that and save it for our own use than sending it down the river to Lake Texoma for everyone in Ft. Worth to use. We see that as viable resource for sales and we see it as a viable water source that the city needs to utilize in the future and that’s the reason for the two projects. We can’t get that project permitted for one thing and there’s 15 miles of right away that we need to acquire to lay that pipeline in from here to Lake Arrowhead. All that takes time so that is the reason for the emergency project to help us with this particular drought and we’ve set that project up so that we could recover as much cost as we can.
Q: Why have we seen such little rainfall over the last few years and what can we expect in the future?
A: Johnson – Well I’m a firm believer in cyclical weather patterns. A lot of people say it’s global warming and climate change. No this is not, this is a cyclical weather pattern. If you look throughout the history of the last 100 years this place is susceptible to drought conditions. We have had droughts in the past, big droughts before in the 50s, I believe there was another one in the 70s and another one in the 80s, but this drought that we are in right now is just more recent and with an influx of people. We have more people here now and in this technology age we are able to keep up with it. We really got this started back in 2011, that’s where we saw about 12-13 inches of rain on average where we normally get 28-29 inches of rain, which was way below average. Last year we saw about 19 inches of rain and this year we’re supposed to see 20 inches of rain. So if you do the math over the last three years that puts us at 30-34 inches below the average. That basically means we went for a year to a year and a quarter without rain. As far as what the future holds it is very hard to say but a lot of times these kind of droughts, if you look at it from a historical perspective, can last up to 10 years. I’m not saying that this will last 10 years. We have already seen an up in rainfall and gradually it will in the next few years. And as history shows us, when it rains here it pours. Wichita Falls is susceptible to drastic weather patterns and drastic weather changes. You can go from dry to very very wet. What we need to happen is a tropical storm or hurricane to sit on top of us for a good week and dump about 20 inches of rain. However, we’re out of the tropical season and we’re actually in the drier time.
Q: Can you explain the drought cycle?
A: Nix – You can see a pattern, every 10-15 years there is a drought cycle. The last drought we had in Wichita Falls was in from 1995-2000 and this drought started in 2011 so it’s on that 10-15 year cycle. How long they last varies. They can last 2-3 years and they can last almost 7 like they did back in the 50s. I believe the state climatologist has come out and said that this drought has the potential to last 5-15 years, but we’re watching it very closely and trying to incorporate it into our plan. This drought is more severe.
Q: How have we handled this drought differently than in 1995?
A: Schreiber – We’re handling this drought a lot differently than in 2000, quite frankly we’re handling it significantly differently. 1) We’ve rewritten our drought plan and revised it and all the drought triggers in 1999 have been elevated by 10%. For example, we just entered stage four at 30%, that stage four wouldn’t have kicked in until 20% in the last drought plan, so we elevated all of that. The restrictions are much more restrictive than they were in 1999 or 2000. We have publicized this drought a lot more and we have made people a lot more conscientious about the drought situation and I think it’s getting a lot of play in the media and we’re getting a lot of play statewide. We’ve talked to newspapers in Austin and all over the place all the time.
Leiker – Back in the 2000 time frame they were not doing an emergency reuse project like we are and I think that’s a big step that we’re taking that they didn’t.
Q: Can the city be 100% drought resistant?
A: Schreiber – No, it is unfortunate the city cannot be drought resistant but we can be drought tolerant and that’s what the city is working on.
Q: How does the water reuse project impact MSU?
A: Directly, I don’t know if it’ll impact a whole lot, but it will add about 1/3 of our supply back into the system. I would assume it would affect Midwestern how it would other businesses throughout the city.
Q: How do you think the current drought will affect MSU recruiting?
A: Leiker – With water restrictions it is difficult for Dr. Rogers to recruit students or Darron Leiker to recruit new businesses because they say, ‘Where’s the water?’ That’ll change. This drought will end and we will get back into the pattern to where we recruit. We’re trying to make sure we have water for the people that live here and the businesses here and Midwestern State University, but it does add some difficulty to it.
Q: Would the city be able to help ensure MSU’s playing grounds were kept up to standards to deter them from having to travel to play at a separate venue?
A: Leiker – I would advise my council to not assist because we are selling about 2 billion gallons less of water that we used to so that’s taken a huge hit. So our water fund is taking a huge hit. Therefore, we’re having to take care of other needs such as replacing water lines when they break and pay people to work on them. For us to take money out of that system to help MSU would be difficult. We recognize Midwestern State as a huge community partner and we work with them every term. A couple of recent examples, we provided $350,000 to replace all of the lighting in the soccer fields and earlier this summer we approved a grant request of $300,00 toward the new baseball complex.
Q: Would the city ever consider well water like MSU did?
A: Nix – We did look at but the issue with that is that we’re sitting on a spotty aquifer called the Seymour Aquifer and the water quality in it is very poor and the volume is very limited. To supply a city the size of Wichita Falls would take a huge well field between 250-350 wells, you would have to own all that property and our estimate would be about 3,000 acres to create the well field, plus you have to have water under it and with that spotty Seymour Aquifer it would be hard to do. Once you get all of that in place, which is very expensive to do, you have to get that pipeline in place to go to the plant for treatment. While it looks good and sounds good on paper it doesn’t pan out financially for the city.
