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Surface Water Treatment Plant Groundbreaking

Marks a Milestone for Missouri City

The July 15 groundbreaking ceremony for Missouri City’s new $27 million water treatment plant along the Brazos River marks a milestone for reducing groundwater usage and for teamwork on a City project.

The Groundwater Reduction Plan brings together 40 separate entities that have consolidated 57 well permits under a single permit. The plant is being built to meet regulations set by the Fort Bend Subsidence District, which mandates that the groundwater withdrawals must be no more than 70 percent of total water demand by the year 2013. By January of 2025, withdrawals must be reduced to no more than 40 percent of water demand.

The plant is part of a $53 million surface water treatment project to assure future water needs for the community. “Water drives development, it drives the future of the City, so that $53 million investment in the development of the site and the plant itself is probably the most expensive thing we’ve ever done and it’s probably the most important thing we’ve ever done,” Mayor Allen Owen said at the event.

“The plant will have an initial capacity of 10 million gallons a day when it goes into operation in the winter of 2011, said Scott Hibbs, of Enprotec/Hibbs and Todd Engineers of Abilene, Texas.  “It will expand in two phases to 21 million gallons in 2017 and later to 33 million gallons in 2027 as the population continues to increase.”

The surface water treatment plant, which will feature two reservoirs, also demonstrates a successful collaboration among the City, municipal utility districts and homeowners’ associations, who worked together toward achieving a cost-effective solution to reducing groundwater use for all. It is funded through user fees.

“The concept of having a City and municipal utility districts band together as a group to reduce groundwater will result in the cheapest water in Fort Bend County,” said Carl Bowles, who represents the Sienna Municipal Utility Districts on the plan. “The key is all the municipal utility districts working together on a plan that will be good for all involved.”

The state-of-the-art treatment plant, which has the capacity to store 100 million gallons of water, will process the liquid by:

*Taking the surface water from the Brazos River;

*Removing the dirt with high-tech membrane filters;

* Treating and disinfecting the water

*And, finally, sending the treated surface water to the various utility districts

Project engineers say the quality of the refined water should exceed the quality of the groundwater that residents currently drink.

Please watch the City website: www.missouricitytx.gov and Council agendas for updates.

Photo courtesy of Missouri City

Officially kicking off construction of the Missouri City Surface Water Treatment Plant are from left: Mark Ludlow of Pepper Lawson; Morris Mitchell, of the Quail Valley Utility District; Councilmembers Brett Kolaja and Danny Nguyen; Mayor Allen Owen; Carl Bowles, of the Sienna MUDs; City Manager Frank Simpson; Public Works Director Scott Elmer; James Pirtle of the Quail Valley Utility District; Scott Hibbs,  of Enprotec/Hibbs and Todd Engineers and Angelo Verdino, of the Quail Valley Utility District.