Dear editor, There is little doubt that the rural parts of East WilCo and western Milam County will soon see substantial residential and industrial development. Over the last two years in particular, signs of that growth are apparent in the number of times the Lower Brushy Creek WCID has been asked about easement and inundation information for land near one of the 23 dams we maintain.
This growth will bring something else: wastewater treatment plants. We are already aware of at least four plants upstream of dams we maintain.
Wastewater treatment plants are necessary to this sort of rural development, but they don’t have to discharge noxious effluent into our streams. That’s why your WCID will be active in making sure the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality knows how we feel about the quality of the wastewater these plants put into the waterways up stream of our dams.
In particular, we have deep conc erns about the amount of phosphorous these plants may be permitted to discharge. While it’s not particularly dangerous to human life, too much phosphorus makes the water unsafe for human consumption, often spoils the creeks for fishing, promotes algae, and turns the water our dams retain green.
Just take a look at Brushy Creek below the Round Rock and Hutto treatment plants.
I know it’s unrealistic, but our opinion is that the water these plants discharge should be safe enough to drink. That’s an impossible standard to meet, of course, but it’s how we feel about wastewater discharged into the creeks and streams which flow into the water behind our dams.
The L ower Brushy Creek WCID will look for opportunities to go work with the TECQ and plant operators to minimize the impact these operations have on the surface water upstream of any of the dams we maintain.
Ed Komodosky, president Lower Brushy Creek
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