{"id":154162,"date":"2026-02-06T20:33:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/154162\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T20:33:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T20:33:07","slug":"dripping-springs-renews-efforts-to-expand-wastewater-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/154162\/","title":{"rendered":"Dripping Springs renews efforts to expand wastewater services"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityofdrippingsprings.com\/public-works-department\/pages\/waterwastewater-service\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Wastewater services<\/a> in Dripping Springs are slated to expand after a <a href=\"http:\/\/communityimpact.com\/austin\/southwest-austin-dripping-springs\/government\/2025\/04\/16\/court-decision-paves-way-for-more-wastewater-treatment-to-accommodate-dripping-springs-growth\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">seven-year setback.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityofdrippingsprings.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dripping Springs<\/a> City Council approved several items related to wastewater services at a Feb. 3 meeting.<\/p>\n<p>The overview<\/p>\n<p>Dripping Springs officials are expanding wastewater services, including the construction of a new facility. City Council took steps towards this project with the selection of three firms at the Feb. 3 meeting.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mphlegal.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">McCall, Parkhurst &amp; Horton LLP<\/a> was selected for bond counsel, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.samcocapital.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">SAMCO Capital Markets Inc<\/a>. was selected for financial advisor services and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.burgessniple.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Burgess &amp; Niple Inc.<\/a> was selected as the engineering firm.<\/p>\n<p>Burgess &amp; Niple will provide services related to improving various wastewater system projects, including the expansion of the city&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityofdrippingsprings.com\/public-works-department\/pages\/south-regional-wastewater-reclamation-facility\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">South Regional Wastewater System <\/a>facilities, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/mccmeetingspublic.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net\/drippingtx-meet-c077f3f6e6334344a25a9e559efd25da\/ITEM-Attachment-001-b305510c8fc94d63aaec3adae210b56c.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Request For Qualifications<\/a> published by the city.<\/p>\n<p>RFQs are used to determine the most qualified candidate for a specific project.<\/p>\n<p>Digging deeper<\/p>\n<p>The city\u2019s current wastewater facility is operating at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cityofdrippingsprings.com\/public-works-department\/pages\/waterwastewater-service\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">full capacity<\/a>, meaning the city is unable to accept new service connections. The proposed new facility would have the capacity to treat approximately 820,000 gallons per day.<\/p>\n<p>How we got here<\/p>\n<p>In 2019, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tceq.texas.gov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Commission on Environmental Quality<\/a> approved the city\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tceq.texas.gov\/permitting\/wastewater\/pretreatment\/tpdes_definition.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Pollutant Discharge Elimination System<\/a> discharge permit. The environmental advocacy group <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sosalliance.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Save Our Springs Alliance<\/a> then filed a lawsuit against the TCEQ, asking the courts to rule against the permit, as previously reported by Community Impact.<\/p>\n<p>After several years of hearings, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in favor of the city in April, allowing the city to resume progress on the project. However, costs have increased since 2019, and the city needs <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/austin\/southwest-austin-dripping-springs\/government\/2026\/01\/28\/wastewater-roads-and-growth-in-dripping-springs-2026-state-of-the-city\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$51.5 million<\/a> in additional funding. The city is securing funding from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.twdb.texas.gov\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Texas Water Development Board.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is done though a debt issuance by the city, with the TWDB\u2019s rates,\u201d People and Communications Director Lisa Sullivan said in an email to Community Impact.<\/p>\n<p>What\u2019s next?<\/p>\n<p>The city administrator will negotiate contracts with each of the three companies before bringing them to City Council for approval.<\/p>\n<p>City officials expect the first phase of the project to be completed in the summer of 2028.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wastewater services in Dripping Springs are slated to expand after a seven-year setback. Dripping Springs City Council approved&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,4170,6042,12911],"class_list":{"0":"post-154162","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news","11":"tag-dripping-springs","12":"tag-texas-water-development-board","13":"tag-wastewater"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}