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SMITHVILLE — During the Monday, May 12 Smithville City Council meeting, oaths of office were administered to the council’s three newly elected aldermen, incumbents Tyrone Washington (Place 1) and Jimmy Jenkins (Place 3) and newcomer Brandon Dunham (Place 2).
All three received certificates of election. Tom Etheridge then stepped down to allow Dunham to take his seat.
Once the new council resumed, Washington made a motion to nominate Jenkins to mayor protem, which was approved.
Earlier in the meeting, Randi Jenkins and Marisa Flores Gonzalez of Austin Water introduced the Aquifer, Storage and Recovery Project, which is part of the Austin City Council-approved Water Forward plan. In 2021, Austin Water began a study to determine if aquifers in the region were suitable for the ASR project and the Carrizo-Wilcox Aquifer in Bastrop County was identified as a promising location for potential trials and field tests.
A former Smithville resident and assistant director of Austin Water, Jenkins said she was glad Smithville recently joined the ASR conversation.
“And I’m sure the question on everyone’s mind is why is Austin pursuing ASR? Austin Water has worked diligently to plan for our future water supply needs through a multi-year effort to prepare our 100-year water supply strategies,” Jenkins said.
Gonzalez, water resources program manager of Austin Water, explained ASR is a water supply strategy currently used in San Antonio, El Paso, Kerrville and other cities around the U.S. to store available water for when its most needed, such as times of drought.
ASR is unique in that it doesn’t use groundwater or rainwater to fill its aquifer. When water supplies are plentiful, drinking water from Austin’s water system will be pumped into the aquifer for storage until it’s needed. If the regular water supply becomes low, the stored water will be tested and treated and moved back to Austin’s water system.
High temperature days, extreme drought and rapid population growth all work to create a water supply shortage in the future.
“ASR is a key strategy to stretch our existing water supplies,” Jenkins said.
Gonzalez broke down the project’s timeline stressing that ASR is in the early stages and so far no field testing has been done. Since 2022, only desktop analysis has been done, but the next phase will involve preliminary field testing in a laboratory setting.
Jenkins added, “No water will be injected into the aquifer in this phase.” It could be three more years before that phase would begin.
“Our forecasting tells us that we must take action to meet our communities’ water needs…We’re optimistic that working together we can create a regional approach to support all of our communities,” Jenkins said.
