Many Austinites remain completely without water Friday as tens of thousands of cold-related leaks riddle water mains and pipes, leaving the city in a water crisis that is set to last days. “We never imagined the day where hospitals wouldn’t have water and large segments of our customer base wouldn’t have water,” Austin Water Director […]
Austin Water Utility
AWU is the municipal utility that provides water service for the City of Austin.
Posted inCity Council
City’s power, water committees begin looking at post-storm improvements
City Council members closely tied to Austin’s energy and water utilities have started mapping out their priorities for determining what led to this week’s massive infrastructure failures and what can be done in the future to prevent hundreds of thousands of residents from losing basic services for days at a time. Council Member Leslie Pool […]
Posted inWater
Austin Water issues citywide boil-water notice, urges residents to conserve water
Austin Water has issued a citywide boil-water notice as a result of “extreme weather conditions.” In a statement Wednesday night, the utility said there had been power loss at the Ullrich Water Treatment Plant, its largest water-treatment facility, and drops in water pressures below minimum standards. It said it was working with Austin Energy to […]
Posted inWater
ZAP OKs Ullrich plant variances
The Zoning and Platting Commission voted at its Dec. 15 meeting to recommend the approval of seven environmental variances for the Ullrich Water Treatment Plant, with a stipulation that the size of an access road included in the project be verified to be the minimum deviation from code. The property, 141 acres adjacent to the […]
Posted inWater
Garza questions penalties in water reuse rules
City Council is poised to adopt two ordinances at today’s meeting establishing regulations for on-site water reuse systems as well as water cooling towers. Council has unanimously supported the ideas behind the Water Forward plan that are aimed at reducing the use of city-supplied potable water and increasing the use of rainwater, stormwater and graywater. […]
Posted inLand Development Code
Water-saving code amendments coming
Years after the city’s Water Forward Committee recommended changes to require on-site water reuse systems for commercial development, an item to put the matter into city regulations appears headed for a City Council agenda in December. Austin Water Assistant Director Kevin Crittendon told Council’s water oversight committee Wednesday that the department wants to make changes […]
Posted inWater
City could store three Lake Austins’ worth of water underground by 2040
Austin gets all of its water from the Highland Lakes, but that might not always be the case. The city recently took a first step toward storing massive amounts of water underground. If the plan works, it could help Austin survive as the climate crisis threatens traditional water supplies. With this technique, called aquifer storage […]
Posted inWater
Austin Water aims to bring new conservation ordinances before Council in December
Timelines across the city have been adjusted or paused following the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic. However, the ongoing limitations imposed by the “new normal” have not stopped Austin Water from developing new conservation ordinances to bring before City Council in December. The city water utility plans to bring at least two ordinances before Council […]
Posted inParks
Neighbors of Bright Leaf worry about fire risk
After a City Council vote on July 29 allowing the city to take over management of Bright Leaf Preserve from the Austin Community Foundation, some residents worried about what that might mean for their Northwest Austin neighborhoods, especially in terms of wildfire prevention. The 216-acre nature preserve, the legacy of Georgia B. Lucas, is located south […]
Posted inWater
With businesses shut, Austin Water’s revenues fall
Austin Water, which contributed an extra $5 million to the city’s utility customer assistance program and cut rates by 10 percent in an effort to help those affected by the coronavirus, has itself felt the impact of business closures on its bottom line. David Anders, assistant director for finance and business services, told the Austin […]
Posted inCity Hall
City takes precautions for critical employees
Electricity. Water. Trash pickup. The city of Austin provides all these services and we take it as a given that they will be there when we need them. Even as most Austinites have been ordered to stay home, the employees who make sure we still have lights, water and trash removal are still working during […]
Posted inWater
Austin Water reports happier customers and over-budget expenses for first quarter
In a mixed start to the year, Austin Water reported expenses that were 14 percent above budget for the quarter and revenues that were 6.2 percent higher than projections. “We were above our (revenue) budget by $8.79 million,” Christina Romero, Austin Water’s financial manager, told the Water and Wastewater Commission on March 11. Below-average rainfall […]