The Rule
 
In 1984, the Texas Water Commission, now the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), passed a rule prohibiting the discharge of effluent from wastewater treatment utilities into the Highland Lakes. Existing discharge permits were grandfathered, but no new permits were issued after that time that permitted placing treated wastewater into the Highland Lakes.
 
Terrell Smith, an attorney specializing in water issues, and later District 47 State Representative, spearheaded the effort to get the new no-discharge rule passed. A new organization called Protect Lake Travis Association acted as the watchdog over wastewater discharges, and later fought efforts by cities and developments around Lake Travis that sought to evade or get exemptions to the no-discharge rule.

 

The Meeting
 
Last June, a group of eight city officials and water utility officials met in Leander to discuss the possibility, and desirability, of convincing the TCEQ to lift its no-discharge rule. The meeting was called by Dan Dodson, City Manager of Jonestown, and included representatives from Leander, Lago Vista, Jonestown, Lakeway, Marble Falls and several other small communities in the Highland Lakes region. 
 

According to Dodson, the idea of improving wastewater plants around the lakes in order to enable discharge into the lakes was met with some resistance by the group. He said that only about half of the meeting participants had a positive response to the idea, mainly because of the high cost of modifying their wastewater treatment processes.
 
Justification
 
The justification for the meeting was water supply, according to Dodson. Lifting the no-discharge rule from the Highland Lakes would add an estimated 25,000 acre-ft. of water per year to the available water supply in the Colorado basin. Spraying cedars with treated effluent wastes the water. The option of treating the effluent to a cleaner level and putting it back in the Lakes would add to the available water supply of the Colorado basin.  LCRA currently has a study underway to try to find new water sources for the basin.
 
Although not related to this meeting, another reason for lifting the no-discharge rule is that a developer who has a piece of land near one of the Highland Lakes is required to find either some other land, such as a golf course, to irrigate with the effluent from the development's wastewater plant, or to set aside a part of the developer's land for that purpose. If the no-discharge ban were lifted, then the developer would have the use of all of his land for development. So, lifting the no-discharge rule would presumably encourage new development.

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