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Horseshoe Bay residents asked to conserve water as city works on plants

Central Water Plant in Horseshoe Bay

Horseshoe Bay residents are being asked to conserve water for the immediate future because mechanical issues over the past weekend have limited the city’s supply. 

City water crews worked Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 23-24 — and are continuing to work — to keep water flowing. 

Interim City Manager Jeff Koska said the issues began at the West Plant on Oct. 22 when employees discovered a hole in the holding tank, which is about 25 years old. Workers shut down the plant to patch the hole, which was the result of normal corrosion over the years, Koska said. They were unable to get a water sample to a lab before it closed for the weekend, however, and have to keep the plant closed until a test ensures the water is safe for human consumption. As a result, Horseshoe Bay city leaders closed the plant and decided to supply water to the city from the Central Plant, which normally isn’t a problem.

“We have to do that as a precaution,” Koska said of the lab test. “Then, we ran into issues with the intake pumps at the Central Plant. We had problems from the lake into the Central Plant.”

Those issues combined with weekend temperatures in the 90s and a high-volume of visitors meant water usage was extreme for an October weekend, Koska added. 

“It was a higher demand than we anticipated,” he said. “We couldn’t get the flow to meet the demand.”

He believes some residents were using their irrigation systems, which didn’t help as workers addressed the problems at the Central Plant. High water demand is usually from 1-8 a.m., he said, because of irrigation systems.

“We have an intake pump engineer and a pump company working on it now to get maximum water,” Koska said. “(Central Plant is) the plant that provides water to the whole city. We use that plant to produce water to meet the demands of the city. We are working to get those two pumps to work together to get capacity to Central Plant.”  

Koska said the water sample from the West Plant was taken to the lab at 6 a.m. Monday, Oct. 25, but it takes about 18 hours to get results. That means the plant might not began pumping water to residents until Oct. 26. 

He praised city employees for working day and night through the weekend to address the intake issues.

“We’re not going to stop until we get this resolved,” he said. “At minimum, we’ll get 6 million gallons of water at both plants by the end of the week.”

Residents can call Rick Williams, interim director of utilities, at 830-598-9989 for more information.

jfierro@thepicayune.com

2 thoughts on “Horseshoe Bay residents asked to conserve water as city works on plants

  1. Burnet County will have new representation in the State House. I received a misleading email claiming Ellen Troxclair voted in austin to defund the police in 2018. It’s a false accusation because because the Defund phenomenon didn’t arise until Troxclair was off the city council. As a private citizen she opposed defunding the police

    1. What in the world does your comment have to do with the water problems in Horseshoe Bay? Please stay on topic!

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