New Kingsland septic plant to come online October
Construction is underway at 241 Williamette Drive in Kingsland on a new septic processing facility. Staff photo by Dakota Morrissiey
A new septic waste intake facility in Kingsland should be online by October, quadrupling the daily processing power of the Kingsland Municipal Utility District. The project comes with a $14.8 million price tag that should mostly be paid for through the facility’s users rather than KMUD taxpayers.
The new facility will replace the existing septic plant, which has been in operation for the last 15 years. It will process 40,000 gallons of waste per day compared to the current plant’s 10,000 gallons. KMUD General Manager J. Horry explained that the new plant site could someday be expanded to include a second wastewater treatment facility.
“The secondary treatment plant is just for septic haulers at this time,” he told DailyTrib. “The plan for the future, way out in the future, will be to build a domestic plant as well.”
The new septic-processing facility will be built next to the old plant at 241 Williamette Drive on the outskirts of Kingsland.
According to Horry, the new plant was needed due to the limited options for septic haulers in the immediate area and because the current plant was reaching the end of its life and in constant need of repairs.
“The old saying, ‘you can’t put a band aid on a cut throat,’” he said. “We’re constantly having to repair the old facility. Everything is old and worn out. You just can’t keep bandaiding.”
This new plant will mostly serve as a drop-off for private septic hauling businesses in the area, which collect waste from customers throughout the Highland Lakes. Those haulers pay per gallon to use the facility. The per-gallon rate was increased in 2025 from 8.25 cents to 25 cents, about a 203 percent increase. This change was made, in part, to help fund the new facility and pay back the $14.8 million in bonds that were taken out to help build it.
While the new plant does mean increased costs for septic haulers, potentially impacting septic users in the area, it should not affect KMUD taxpayers.
“No taxpayer money was used for this,” Horry said. “We took out bonds to pay for it through (The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality).”
KMUD provides wastewater services to its approximately 3,400 customers in the Kingsland area. Septic users may not necessarily be customers of KMUD, but the district’s leadership still sees the need, and opportunity, to serve the greater Highland Lakes area with the new septic plant.
“There are not many septic receivers around anymore,” Horry said. “There are a lot of septic systems still out there, people that are way out in the country, people that are not in a city or a district such as ours.”
Right now, septic users have few reasonable options to dispose of their waste. There is a septic receiver in Austin, but surrounding receivers in Lampasas, Gillespie, and Kerr counties either have steep cost increases for out-of-county users or are exclusively for in-county use. Marble Falls also takes in a limited amount of waste.