Dirty water tests of Austin's water utility – News – Austin American-Statesman

Overwhelming amounts of silt and debris flowing in Lake Travis Lake and Lady Bird after historic floods in the Hill Country last week tested more imperative as the day went on.

In the end, and fighting fires won out. Early Monday, Austin Water – the city-owned utility that services residents in Austin, Rollingwood, Sunset Valley and West Lake Hills – issued a boil water notice on the belief that the opaque brown water was treated at the city's water treatment plants would no longer meet federal standards.

The strain of the seedling plants is maintained in the water.

The utility must maintain a certain level of water pressure in the system to provide firefighting services. However, as usual, the use of water has increased, and the water supply has increased.

The decision to issue a boil water notice came after days of extremely elevated levels of debris, which were 100 times above what is normal for the lakes, Austin Water director Greg Meszaros said.

"It's a real struggle, and it's a real struggle," he said.

The city's three water treatment plants have struggled to meet customers' needs because of the level of contamination that they have experienced. Meszaros said. Even at its limited capacity, the utility is used to the bottom of the world.

"It's a bad loop that we are in," Meszaros said. "It's just been getting worse and worse."

Because of this, treatment plants have been coming into the marketplace with the deeply muddied waters.

"The water quality" is so abnormal that they have before, "said Desmond Lawler, a civil engineering professor at the University of Texas. "They have to figure out what those parameters are."

Flood events in the Austin area are typically fast-moving affairs. The city's utility in the Colorado River becomes a leader and a pass after a day or two. In a normal situation, the utility can rely on its reserves.

Not this time.

Meszaros said the utility has increased considerably. That has placed continual stress on water reserves, which has a prohibition on Sunday, the boil water notice early Monday, and later, a prohibition on nearly all outdoor uses of water.