URGENT: Working together to connect the Hornsby Bend Area with Austin City Water

We are asking for Travis County and the City of Austin to work with us in applying for federal and state funding to connect the Hornsby Bend Area to Austin Water in order to provide residents with safe, high-quality, and affordable water.

The Hornsby Bend Neighborhood is a diverse, low and middle-income neighborhood, home to over 12,000 residents and situated in Austin’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) and in Travis County. It is identified as disadvantaged by the White House Environmental Justice Screening Tool.

One urgent issue is the quality and cost of water.

Residents are currently paying upwards of $150-300 a month to the private water company, Southwest water. And as they pay these outrageously high costs, residents have reported frequent water discoloration, and for many, it has led to intense hair and skin irritation, and potential deeper health impacts yet to be assessed.

Residents have reached out to SouthWest Water requesting a solution to the alarming water conditions and reported the degraded water quality to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) on numerous occasions over the years, however, the issues still persist.

The easiest solution residents have explored has been to request Austin Water to provide them with services.

We know this is possible.

As a clear example, in 2022, despite being within the service area of SouthWest Water, Tesla applied for and received an “expedited release” from SouthWest’s service area by the Public Utility Commission without any apparent public input or oversight from the Council. It is estimated that they will consume nearly 400 million gallons of water per year for their operations.

Why have communities not been allowed to be serviced by Austin Water but private companies have?

We request your dedicated support (legal, financial, regulatory) so that the Hornsby Bend Neighborhood can be serviced by Austin Water as soon as possible.

Respectfully,

Alexia Leclercq, PODER
Susana Almanza, PODER
Valerie Menard, Colorado River Conservancy
Tessa Comstock, Hornsby Bend Alliance, Austin’s Colony Resident
Richard Franklin, Hornsby Bend Alliance, Austin’s Colony Resident
Liegh Toland, Hornsby Bend Alliance, Austin’s Colony Resident
Cherelle Roberts, Austin’s Colony Resident
Kye Tavernier, Austin’s Colony Resident
Brooke Cruz, Austin’s Colony Resident
Melia O’Dell, Austin’s Colony Resident
Sergio Castellano, RESET Lab, UT