Chalk Bluff residents this week continued to challenge Waco officials about a proposed city wastewater treatment plant near their homes, raising concerns about past city sewage spills as well as potential pharmaceutical pollution downstream in Lake Brazos.
About 120 people attended a come-and-go meeting with city officials Tuesday at the Waco Convention Center. City water staff were assigned to six stations where attendees could talk with them about plant design, permitting and regulation processes, and how other wastewater plants in the Brazos watershed have fared.
Some attendees said in interviews that while the meeting was productive and informative, they faulted the city for a lack of communication. Some said they would have preferred a town hall format.
The Waco City Council last June agreed to spend $4.3 million to buy 153 acres at the end of Buster Chatham Road on the Brazos River, about four miles upstream of downtown Waco, for a future wastewater plant meant to address population growth in China Spring.
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The plant would be similar in size to the city’s Bull Hide Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant near Lorena. City officials said no concrete plans for the plant exist yet, with design plans not expected to begin until 2030 and construction not slated to start until 2032. Operations at the plant would not begin until at least 10 years from now.
Many Chalk Bluff residents said they did not hear about the city’s purchase until January, when the council discussed the future plans for the plant at a council meeting.
WATCH NOW: Waco wastewater treatment plant public comment and presentation at Jan. 16, 2024 city council meeting
Several residents spoke against the plant at the Jan. 16 city council meeting, and since then, have been trying to spread the word against the plant by creating a Facebook page and website opposing the plant.
Opponents objected to the city building a wastewater plant for China Spring in their neighborhood, which would see no direct benefit.
They raised concerns that odors from the plant could drift into their homes.
Residents said they are concerned about the potential pollution of the Brazos River from the plant’s effluent, or the treated wastewater discharged from a wastewater plant. They expressed worry about chemicals such as pharmaceuticals that could escape the treatment process.
Waco officials at the meeting said the effluent from wastewater plants is heavily monitored by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and is safe enough to drink, though it is not recommended.
They also emphasized that solid waste would be filtered out and hauled away. They said there are already many other plants along the Brazos River upstream from Waco, which have not had negative impacts on water quality.
Officials also said odor technologies, implemented at Bull Hide to prevent smell, would also be used at the new plant. To avoid the plant becoming an eyesore, officials also said natural elements such as trees and a berm would be used to hide the plant from neighbors, and said a wetlands would likely be used as an additional method for cleansing effluent.
Jeanna Maughan lives across the street from the proposed plant and has been active in organizing her neighbors in opposition to the plant. She said the recent power outage that caused over 600,000 gallons of wastewater to flow out of a transfer lift station near Lake Waco has made her extra worried about the proposed plant, as she said failure is inevitable at the plant due to the possibility of power failures or overflow, especially with so much of the property being in a floodplain.
About half the 153-acre tract is in a 100-year floodplain, but the plant itself could fit outside the floodplain. The Bull Hide Creek plant, for example, has a 5-acre footprint.
Maughan also pointed out several previous wastewater spills that occurred in Waco, such as a 2021 spill at the central wastewater treatment plant, when 4.5 million gallons flowed into the Brazos due to a mechanical failure and heavy rain.
Maughan also raised concerns about pharmaceuticals in treated wastewater, which has become a more well-known issue in recent years. Microplastics and chemicals from pharmaceutical drugs have been found in water supplies due to water reuse, with estrogen from birth control pills having negative impacts on the reproductive cycles of fish.
Bryan Brooks, an environmental science researcher at Baylor, said he has studied contaminants in water for years. He said while negative effects have been documented due to contaminated water, the effects depend on how technology is implemented in plants, and thus the same result is not always seen everywhere.
Kendall Borg, the city’s utilities plant operations manager, said technology does not currently exist to treat wastewater for pharmaceuticals, but emerging technology that can superheat water could be widely available in the next 15 to 20 years. He also said the Environmental Protection Agency is working on updating regulations to address microplastics and polyfluorinated substances, or PFAS, chemicals which have been detected in drinking water.
Brooks said Waco has an excellent track record in managing its water, and water nationwide has been well-regulated and clean thanks to the Clean Water Act of 1972.
“It’s one of the gold standard pieces of legislation on the planet from which many other countries have developed from,” Brooks said. “It’s a federal, longstanding law that has kept water standards good.”
Brooks also said it is imperative for cities to advance methods to reuse water, especially as populations grow in areas farther from water sources, such as China Spring. He also said effluent is rigorously treated before being released, and water pumped for use is processed again before coming out of the tap.
Borg said the effluent produced by wastewater plants is heavily monitored by the TCEQ and the city would not even be able to get a permit to operate the plants without passing regular monthly tests. He said effluent leaving plants such as Bull Hide is cleaner than the water in the river or Lake Waco.
However, Craig Pollard, a geologist who lives near the proposed plant, said while wastewater effluent might be up to TCEQ standards, it still allows for certain numbers of colony-forming units of E. coli bacteria to be present in effluent samples, while drinking water samples must have zero colony-forming units of E. coli. Thus, he said while the water might be clear, it is not clean, and he said he believes it still poses a threat to Lake Brazos.
Ultimately, Maughan said residents hope the city will move the construction of the plant to a different location, but city officials seemed set on the current proposed location.
City spokesperson Monica Sedelmeier said by email Wednesday that the location was chosen for a variety of reasons, including its proximity to the river and close to other needed utility infrastructure, as well as the fact the city was able to purchase the land from a willing buyer.
Sedelmeier said construction of wastewater treatment plants costs about $20 to $30 per gallon of daily capacity, meaning a plant with a treatment capacity of 1 million gallons per day is expected to cost upward of $30 million. She said a facility of that size can serve about 4,000 to 5,000 households.
District 5 Waco City Council Member Jim Holmes, whose district includes China Spring, said he hopes for future meetings with Chalk Bluff residents to include more in-depth discussions. He said the city is committed to hearing out residents and applying their feedback to plant plans.
“We want to hear all the feedback from all of the citizens here and figure out next steps,” Holmes said. “I don’t think we’ve made a final decision on anything.”
