There have been, and continue to be, many discrepancies in what we read, what we are told, and what we find out on our own. And things that have happened already in the run-up and preliminary work for this project have us more concerned about the plans.
Other concerns worth noting (some overlap with what's in the spreadsheet above):
- Austin Water Utility has not planned this construction of the transmission mains up Spicewood Springs Road. They are funding it with short term commercial paper and creating debt without citizens voting on the issue.
- Sometime around May-June 2010, when AWU and its contractors were doing preliminary drilling for core-samples of the rock formations, and for water measurements, they did a job that was shoddy, unsafe, and even illegal (without properly licensed geologists present, as required by Texas law). A bit more info on our Facebook page. Does not exactly make us feel warm and fuzzy about what they can do with cranes, shafts, tunnels, dump-trucks, and cement-manufacturing plants.
- July 30, 2010: Greg Meszaros tells In Fact Daily: "We estimate the 620, Anderson Mill, 183 route (to be) about a $40-plus million difference in terms of cost". Our calculations show that there are solutions along this route that utilize the existing utility easement 1000 feet west of 620, that range from many million dollars cheaper, to a few million dollars more. At this point, is AWU really looking at these in good faith, instead of trying to find reasons to fail them?
- July 30, 2010: Greg Meszaros tells In Fact Daily about the 620 route: “And there are significant unknowns with that. There would actually be more shaft sites, there would be a lot of additional real estate, there would be businesses and homes that would be disrupted by that construction also." Our calculations show design options that utilize the existing utility easement 1000 feet west of 620, require the same or fewer shafts, dramatically less impact on any community, and absolutely zero impact on school children.
- Late-July, 2010: Stacie Long, the AWU project manager for Jollyville Transmission Mains, informs the City at the Environmental Board meeting that the traffic impact on the Spicewood Springs area would be "less than 1%". This could be a quite misleading statement, as an Open Records Request and our own research suggests that:
- She was using outdated traffic data from 2003-2004
- She only counted dump-trucks, and omitted thousands of trucks including 18-wheelers carrying pipe, wood lagging, steel rails, large equipment and tools, and other delivery and service trucks ferrying workers and materials due to very limited parking at the site.
- She may have treated the traffic as spread over a 24 hour day, when in fact it will be concentrated over a 6-hour window.
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The city is now saying that there will be a 125 foot tall crane at the corner of Old Lampasas Tr. and Spicewood Springs Road to be used in building the mining operation.
The city is now saying that they will dump the discharge water from the tunnel construction into Bull Creek. This will effect the waters of Bull Creek all the way to Town Lake. A much wider problem than anyone knew before this week.
The city is now saying that they will construct a concrete-making plant at the shaft site to manufacture the cement or grout mixture that will be pumped to fill the void between the 6.5 miles of pipe and the rock tunnel around it. A concrete plant on the PARD site raises a number of questions. The recipe for concrete is cement (needs to be protected from the elements), sand (piled outside),gravel (piled outside) and water (a tank). how to fit all of that onto the 0.8 acre site, even if done sequentially ( dig, bore, place the pipe ,then the concrete).
Also, batch plants typically have an area where the trucks (if some are involved ) wash out their tanks. How will they protect the waters of Bull Creek? Will they even bother?
City Council on July 29th will consider an agenda item 23 and 28 asking for money to fund the transmission mains. We need to stop this funding from going forward.