City going with Blue Water

Blue Water is in Rockdale’s future.

Rockdale City Council members, on a 4-0 vote Monday night made a major change in the city’s ongoing multimillion-dollar water system replacement project, opting to purchase outside water instead of relying on Rockdale’s iron and manganese-laden wells.

Those metals, and their effect on antiquated pipes are said to be the cause of the city’s red water problems. Blue Water Systems will now be the supplier instead of the old wells.

Also during the meeting, the city and Rock-dale Fair Association appeared heading toward an agreement designed for the RFA to shoulder more of the annual cost of staging the Rockdale Fair, the city’s largest annual event.

The meeting drew a standing-room-only crowd in the council chambers, fueled by some Facebook users’ concern over the Fair’s future.

That was not a topic for discussion, however. “Nobody wants to do away with the Fair,” Mayor John King told the crowd.

WATER—The council has been mulling for months whether to make the water switch from local wells to outside sources.

Ross Cummings, president of Blue Water, said Monday the water he is offering for sale will solve the problems Rockdale water customers have experienced.

“It’s high quality, comes from much deeper wells and is a reliable supply,” he said. “It will remove treatment from the process.”

“In these deeper wells, iron and manganese don’t exist,” Blue Water’s Paul Terrill told the council.

Cummings said the cost to the city for transmission lines linking Blue Water to the city’s system will be $12.198-million and that Blue’s water comes out of the ground meeting TCEQ standards.

That will relieve Rock-dale from the cost of building treatment plants in the overhaul of the city’s water system.

The trick will be how to deal with the “new era” in Rockdale water as the purer product comes into the system. “Obviously putting better water into already corroded pipes isn’t desirable,” City Manager Chris Whittaker said. “But at some point that’s going to happen because it’s going to take a long time to replace all these pipes and fix the up to 40-percent leakage.”

King noted Rockdale will own the water and the council will set rates.

BILLS—The future effect on water bills is yet to be determined.

Whittaker noted the original cost of treatment facilities in an envisioned $63-million-plus water and sewer project was $19-million. “KSA Engineers had pared that down to $10-million,” he said. “When we figure in the $12.198 million we will be paying Blue Water, that means the savings on the water side of the project are now about $7-million instead of $9-million”

However, application for funding will now be through the US Dept. of Agriculture instead of the Texas Water Development Board. Blue Water’s Terrill said he believes the USDA can place the city in a category where it could be eligible for up for 75 percent grant funding for the project.

“That’s up to 75 percent,” Mayor King pointed out.

“With the millions of dollars in savings that should have somewhat of a positive effect on water rates,” Whittaker said. “But more water rate increases will come and they will probably come sooner because of this.”

Councilman Richard Coppedge’s motion also directed KSA to continue its engineering work on a new sewer plant.

FAIR PARK —The council immediately allayed the crowd’s fears that any action during the meeting would place the Fair in jeopardy.

“Worst case scenario (after council action) is that this year’s Fair goes ahead exactly as last year’s Fair did,” King said. “It has never been anyone’s intention to cancel the Fair.”

James Birkhead, RHS board member noted the RFA and city had a memorandum of understanding for nine years covering the park but it has expired and the organization is seeking guidance on how to proceed after the city expressed the desire the RFA should shoulder more of the facility’s utilities and maintenance.

“We probably mow the park a dozen times every summer,” King said.

One option discussed was conveying the park to the RFA at no charge. King noted the facility was originally owned by a long-defunct park association which gave Fair Park to the city in 1919.

That would require a vote by Rockdale residents. “If that passed, and RFA owned the park, the city would negotiate with the association for use of the facility for events like the July Fourth fireworns Ning said1

The RFA would become a city water customer.

“If the park should ever revert to non-public use it would go back to the city,” King added.

The council voted to proceed with such an election in May, 2020 but to continue to explore other options in the interim.

Birkhead said the RFA simply needs to assess what its costs are so it can budget for the future. “We have already got kids buying animals for 2020,” he said.