Council slated to approve updates to Water Forward Plan and to Austin Water’s Conservation and Drought Contingency plans

This month, City Council will vote on proposed updates to Austin’s Water Forward Plan and to the related Water Conservation and Drought Contingency plans. During a briefing on Oct. 22, Austin Water Director Shay Ralls Roalson presented an overview of the changes to the plans, which Council will consider on Nov. 21.

Water Forward, Austin’s 100-year integrated water resource plan, was first approved in 2018, and was designed to incorporate five-year updates.

“This plan needs to be adaptive to growth, drought and climate change for the future of our community,” Roalson explained during the recent work session.

Part of the impetus for the creation of Water Forward was the drought from 2008-2016 – the longest, deepest drought in regional history. Roalson emphasized the importance of planning for uncertainty: “We know that Austin is going to grow, but we don’t know exactly where or when that growth will happen. We know that climate change is affecting our water supply, but we don’t yet know the severity of climate change in our 100-year timestep that we will experience.”

Much of the plan centers on managing Austin’s stored water supply – the combined storage in lakes Buchanan and Travis.

“This plan is founded first and foremost on conservation and reuse. … Layered on top of that is stretching our water supplies through strategies of storage and developing new supplies beyond the Colorado River,” Roalson said.

The goal with Water Forward was to project changes in water demand, climate and streamflow, and then to model future supply needs and develop strategies for resiliency. The primary strategies in the plan include reducing overall water use (mitigating water loss on both the utility and customer sides and incentivizing the use of native landscaping), stretching existing supply (expanding systems of reusing water or exploring new options for water storage) and adding new supply.

“This plan will be updated every five years, and that allows us to incorporate the latest science and projections and make incremental improvements,” Roalson said.

Meanwhile, the Water Conservation and Drought Contingency plans are both required to be submitted to state agencies every five years. The Conservation Plan addresses the community’s water use year-round, whereas the Drought Contingency Plan focuses on strategies to roll back water use once drought thresholds are triggered. Council approved both plans in May before the state deadline and the upcoming dry summer. However, some stakeholders felt the draft plans needed more aggressive conservation goals, so these plans were approved with a built-in commitment to consider additional revisions this fall. These revisions are coming to Council alongside the updates to the Water Forward Plan.

Roalson highlighted a shift toward stronger water conservation norms during the recent drought, when the Austin community’s overall water usage declined significantly before leveling off in recent years. The updated Water Conservation and Drought Contingency plans include new goals to bring down daily usage. Austin Water recently completed an external review of sources of water loss within the utility and is working to implement those recommendations.

Roalson also highlighted the rollout of My ATX Water – the program to install smart water meters citywide. This project is expected to be completed next year and will allow Austin Water customers to see real-time updates on their water usage and to identify leaks faster. Find out if your smart meter has been installed here, and access your smart water data through the portal here.

The plans also now incorporate the Go Purple program (an initiative Council approved to expand our reclaimed water system earlier this year) and new restrictions on drip irrigation. Austin Water will be publishing quarterly and annual reports on their progress toward these goals.

Roalson highlighted the recent stakeholder engagement efforts on the updates to the three plans, including public workshops and discussions with the Water Forward Task Force, the Resource Management Commission and the Water and Wastewater Commission. All three of these bodies will vote to endorse the updates to each plan before they come to Council later this month. Council members serving on the Austin Water Oversight Committee will also discuss the proposed updates on Nov. 12.

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license.

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