Austin Water's Drought Plan Moves to Eastern Travis County, and Thursday's Open House Is Where Residents Can Question It
After Bastrop County said no, Austin Water will drill test wells on city land in eastern Travis County in 2027 — storing treated water underground and testing whether salty groundwater can be made drinkable.
AUSTIN — Austin Water will hold an open house on Thursday, Nov. 12, on the two drought projects it now wants to test in eastern Travis County, the utility announced Oct. 28, in a report read in full by the desk. The drop-in event runs from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. at the Permitting and Development Center, Room 1405, 6310 Wilhelmina Delco Drive.
Both projects belong to Water Forward, the city's 100-year water plan. Aquifer storage and recovery would store treated drinking water underground in part of the Trinity Aquifer when supplies are plentiful, then pump it back out during a drought or emergency, with the water tested before and after storage. Brackish groundwater desalination would pump up salty groundwater and filter out the salt and minerals to meet drinking-water standards, leaving brine the utility says it will manage responsibly. Starting in 2027, the utility plans to drill test wells on city-owned land in eastern Travis County and test water quality and core samples to see whether either idea works there.
Eastern Travis County was not the first choice. Austin Water first looked at Bastrop County, then in November 2025 pulled a proposed agreement from the council agenda and stopped pursuing the project there after it drew local opposition, according to the report. Staff have built what they learned in Bastrop into the new community engagement plan, they told a council committee in May, though they acknowledged no formal postmortem was sent to the council.
The numbers explain why both projects are being tested together. Staff told the committee the original Carrizo-Wilcox plan would have yielded about 44,000 acre-feet a year, while a Trinity Aquifer project would likely yield 15,000 to 20,000 — about a third — and brackish desalination was added because it could roughly double that yield. For scale, Austin uses about 170,000 to 175,000 acre-feet a year. On May 28 the council approved a $15,726,269 amendment to HDR Engineering's contract for the aquifer storage pilot and program management, passing 9-0 on consent. The timeline from here is long: test-well drilling in spring 2027, a planning report by spring 2028, and, if the project moves ahead, roughly eight to ten years to design and build a full-scale system.
