Houston officials are seeking assistance from state lawmakers to help pay for some of the $4.93 billion in water utility improvements needed to prevent people from suffering widespread boil water notices and mass water loss, should aging infrastructure lead to catastrophic failure down the road.
Josh Sanders, Mayor John Whitmire’s chief of intergovernmental relations, said city officials will not be asking for the money from the state all at once, but rather will seek funding to aid individual projects, such as replacing the line that transports untreated water to the city’s East Water Purification Plant, as a part of that total price tag. Erin Jones, spokesperson for Houston Public Works, said there are no plans to charge Houstonians more money for their water usage to offset the cost of improvements to the utility, nor is there a study taking place to determine the need to raise water costs.
Sanders and other city officials plan to attend committee hearings Sept. 3 in Austin to lay out Houston’s needs.
Houston Water Utility consists of a puzzle of water and wastewater treatment facilities and wastewater lift stations, along with the veins of pipes winding underground that provide water to more than 5 million residents across the Houston region. The highest profile users include the Texas Medical Center — the largest in the nation — and the area’s 622 petrochemical facilities, which represent 44% of the facilities in the country.
The utility malfunctioning could spell trouble for millions. The east plant supplies water for 65% to 70% of city residents, and if the line that carries raw water to be treated at the plant fails, it could mean that many residents will be without water.
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Houston Water has three main issues when it comes to making the fixes to its water utility. Two of the most critical involve the East Water Purification Plant — which treats between 300 million to 310 million gallons of water a day.
The East plant needs another pipe for raw water to replace the 70-year-old one in place. The plant also needs to be rebuilt entirely.
Then comes the need to address leaky pipes in Houston that have been the center of the city’s water billing issues. Houston’s water loss alone could supply a city of 900,000 — like Fort Worth or San Jose — with water, Eyerly said.
One of the lawmakers Houston is working with is state Sen. Charles Perry, a Lubbock Republican who’s led the charge for water-related initiatives at the state level.
Perry chairs both the Water, Agricultural and Rural Affairs, and the State Water Implementation Fund committees, which could both prove beneficial in leveraging state dollars.
See here for some background. Suffice it to say that I don’t have a whole lot of faith in the government of Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick doing anything to help the city of Houston. They don’t like us, they don’t care about us, they see no benefit to themselves in lifting a finger for us. That said, being unwilling to help is not the same as being actively antagonistic, and to the extent that they’re more the former than the latter, I could see legislative efforts being successful. This was a point of emphasis for Mayor Whitmire during the campaign, and I expect him and his team to lean on that in the coming sessions. I hope their optimism is justified. And I also hope they’re lobbying the members of Congress that represent Houston, because federal aid will be needed as well.