Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 9:30 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Climate, Water, Environment, and Parks Committee
0:02 Everyone, welcome to the climate, water environment and parks committee.
0:08 I am vice chair Paige elli, and I'm calling this meeting to order at 9:31 am I am joined
0:14 by other committee members, Council Member Mike Siegel, and Council Member mark uchin.
0:18 Our chair, Ryan altar will be here in just a couple of minutes, but he said we could
0:22 go ahead and kick this off and get started.
0:25 I hear we have two speakers.
0:27 Yes. And our first speaker is gonna be scott johnson and he also is gonna have someone who is
0:32 going to be donating time.
0:34 Alright. I'm not sure if we normally do time donation for committees, but let's go for it.
0:43 Sounds good. Scott johnson.
0:57 Um, and our second person, I just sent them the information to call in, so I don't know
1:02 if they're gonna be ready right this second.
1:05 All right. Well, we will, uh, take those speakers as soon as they become available.
1:11 For now, let's do approval of the minutes.
1:13 And these are from the January 28th, 2026 meeting.
1:16 Do I have a motion made by Council Member Siegel?
1:19 Seconded by Council Member uchin.
1:21 All in favor say, aye.
1:22 That is unanimous for the three of us on the daas, and I see our speaker is now
1:28 in the room. So let's go ahead and go back to speakers.
1:30 Thank you, scott. Whenever you're ready.
1:32 You're up next.
1:56 Good morning everyone. My name is scott johnson and I'm here today to talk about air quality and climate.
2:03 And one of the things I'd like to do is to, uh, talk about how I believe that
2:08 the city's, uh, water forward program and the group that has supported it from the community and the
2:14 staff, uh, how important it's that their work that they've done and how they're reporting out very regularly
2:21 to the council and to the c community.
2:24 And talk about the air quality piece of what we do, which is a collaborative piece for those
2:30 of you who don't know, meaning that the city is involved in two different programs.
2:35 One is called the clean air force of central texas, a nonprofit that I believe Council Member Ellis
2:40 was on as a city representative.
2:43 Now, apparently it's, it's Ryan Alter.
2:45 And so my involvement in the group started in 94.
2:49 The group formed in 93.
2:50 I was the board alternate for the sierra club for a couple of years.
2:55 And then they said that they couldn't be involved in these type of, uh, collaboratives where decisions were
3:02 made without informing all of the, uh, folks that were part of it, that being government, business and
3:09 advocacy groups and community members.
3:12 So I just wanted to show this to you.
3:13 I'm not gonna read it and go through all of it, but in 2003, 2004, there was an
3:19 interim executive director after some executive directors left or were let go.
3:25 And I knew enough to be able to write the history for the clean air force for the
3:30 first nine or 10 years that they were in eent.
3:33 I was extremely working, extremely close with 'em, putting a lot of hours, weekly, monthly, into that effort.
3:39 And that type of collaboration is certainly a model that can be said.
3:44 Yes, that model worked out well, uh, for the time that it was in place.
3:50 After judith zini, the senator, who's still a senator, put forward a request to get funding for cities
4:00 that are called near non-attainment, meaning they're not in violation of the federal standard for ground level ozone
4:08 funding came. And that stream went to cap cog, the council of governments.
4:13 And in 20 2002, 2003, they formed a group called the clean air coalition that, or Council Member
4:22 Ellis May still be a part of.
4:23 I'm not sure. And therefore, that is where the most of the activity and most of the policy
4:30 making and most of the discussions happened there starting in 2003, 2004.
4:36 And we came up with our first substantive air quality plan.
4:40 And it was originally called the early action compact, which gave us a mission assessing for vehicles and,
4:47 uh, heavy duty diesel idling rule that is still in place, but it's not enforced 'cause there are
4:52 loopholes in it, et cetera.
4:55 Second slide, please. One of the things that I did when I was working closely with the interim
5:02 executive director of the clean air force is I knew that buses were old.
5:06 A id used to have a lot.
5:08 Some of them were averaging o over 15 years of service at that time in the early two
5:15 thousands. So I talked to her, uh, her name is faith george, and said, I'd like to write
5:20 a proposal to alcoa.
5:22 And I did. And the funding was received, and that funding was used to start the clean bus
5:28 program within the clean air force.
5:30 And there's still a clean bus program within the state of texas.
5:33 Uh, that is something that I'm not working on directly at this particular time.
5:39 Third, third slide, please.
5:44 I also made recommendations to the executive committee in 2002.
5:47 You can see the date on there for different ways to try to improve the organization.
5:52 Sometimes when you're dealing with people who are in positions with businesses or in government elected officials, they're
6:02 not always so willing to take recommendations unless it's been shaped through a, a series of meetings, uh,
6:10 that include more people.
6:12 And I do try, I always do try to get input from other people, but in this case,
6:17 I knew it was needed.
6:18 So this particular effort was not one that found success in that era to make substantive changes within
6:26 the structure of the clean, the clean air force.
6:29 Third slide, please. And some of you'll be happy that when this was the annex for the city
6:38 city's operations for council meetings, I did hold, uh, with the approval of mary arnold, some of you know,
6:45 her well-known advocate for many years since the sixties.
6:48 Uh, we, we had a leaf blower public hearing, and we had, we had industry down and, uh,
6:54 it's the bane of our existence, right?
6:56 If we live in urban areas.
6:57 And, uh, that one didn't work out in quite as well as I thought, but at least we
7:00 raised the issue that leaf blowers are hazardous and and loud.
7:08 Getting to the crux of this situation, uh, something that I found, and I wanted to know if
7:16 these could be, oh gosh, I'm running outta time.
7:20 The water conservation strategy milestones, which is on, I just have a, a piece of paper here.
7:27 I don't, I don't have those, uh, these milestones that are put up on, on the quarterly reports
7:33 that I'm actually holding on Council Member uchin.
7:36 I, I don't, I don't have a slide of it.
7:38 These are valuable. It shows intent, it shows progress on these particular efforts, and that's helpful.
7:46 What you're seeing there online are the state mandated measures.
7:50 Most of those have to be opted into for the plan that we have, which is, uh, the
7:56 ozone plan. So please consider if you're on the clean air force, if you're on the clean air
8:01 coalition, that you can request updates on where we are, where we're going, because we wanna know, you
8:08 brought this up at the last meeting when the, when the colab folks were here from ut.
8:14 How are they helping us reduce emissions today and tomorrow?
8:19 Not, not a planning cycle that is gonna last us into the decades to come.
8:23 We want that and need that, but we need more.
8:26 What are we doing today and what are we doing tomorrow to help protect public health?
8:30 Thank you very much for your testimony for coming down and your continued advocacy in this space.
8:36 Thank you vice chair Ellis for getting us going.
8:38 And my apologies, committee members for being a few minutes late.
8:41 Um, but that, is that our final speaker?
8:47 No, we have what?
8:48 We have one more who is gonna, um, speak via phone.
8:51 Perfect. Up next. Oh, go ahead.
8:54 Oh, sorry to interrupt.
8:55 I just wanted to let you know we had approved the minutes prior to taking the speakers.
8:58 Even better. Thank you.
9:01 If we can have paula kaufman.
9:08 Hello, can you hear me?
9:10 Yes. Hello, this is paul <inaudible>.
9:14 I'm from district nine.
9:15 I'm, we're, I'm testifying today about a surprise bill from texas gas service for lower income neighbors, they
9:23 can be devastating. Texas gas services unfair billing practices, drastically diminished housing affordability ability.
9:33 The target goal of no more than 30% of income paid for housing includes utilities.
9:42 Please negotiate a sophisticated new agreement that caps basic monthly rate increases regardless of regulatory decisions.
9:53 Contract trump regulations, I write in support of austin's resource management commission's well documented recommendation, your agenda item
10:05 four. I implore you to protect your constituents from surprise billing.
10:10 As a former employee of the foundation for the homeless, I know that a 94% gas bill could
10:19 source a lower income offite to forgo other necessities.
10:23 Texas gas service customers cannot plan for the unreasonable, exponential increases demanded in these surprise bills.
10:33 Texas gas service has really many unnecessary and unfair fees and charges.
10:39 For example, the franchise fee, texas gas service site, the, the city of boston, um, requires them to,
10:47 to collect that from the citizens.
10:50 Why this is clearly a delivery expense.
10:54 Texas gas service should pay it.
10:56 San antonio residents don't pay more than $10 and 36 cents a month.
11:02 Austinites are paying $25 a month.
11:06 It's not equitable and it's not sustainable.
11:11 Um, if you go to texas gas services, um, website, they have an understand your bill, sample bill
11:19 in which the weather normalization fee is set at 25 cents for January, 2025.
11:25 And then in December, 2025, mine was $2 and 96 cents more than 10 times the sample bill.
11:33 And then in January, 2026, it jumps to $22 and 73 cents, 90 times the sample bill.
11:42 And then I realized I had used less gas in January than I had in December, but my
11:48 bill rose 22%. Why we're busy, we think, well, we're like, oh, january's cold.
11:55 But then when I really looked at my bill, I said, I need the city of council to
12:01 negotiate a better contract with the next gas provider.
12:07 Texas gas service only supports two cities in texas, el paso and Austin.
12:15 Austin is about 33% of the business.
12:18 Austin, you have leverage.
12:19 Thank you very much.
12:21 And we're gonna have that full discussion later today.
12:24 So appreciate you, uh, phoning in and, and making your voice heard.
12:29 With that, we will close public testimony and move to item number two.
12:35 And I see a cadre of Austin water folks today.
12:39 This is a briefing on Austin waters, walnut creek wastewater treatment, plant expansion and related funding.
12:46 And with that director rolson, take it away.
12:50 Good morning chair council members, thank you, uh, for the opportunity to talk to you today about the
12:58 walnut creek wastewater treatment plant expansion of modernization.
13:01 My name is shay rolls rolson and I'm the director of Austin water.
13:06 Um, we last gave you an update on this project in October as part of our overall capital
13:11 projects update. And, uh, you May recall that this project is being delivered as a construction manager at
13:19 risk. Uh, so in May of 2024, we brought the contractor on board with City Council approval just
13:27 after preliminary engineering. So we knew what we needed to build, um, but there was a whole lot
13:32 of ground to cover to get to the point of being ready to construct it.
13:36 And it has been very effective and productive having the contractor on the team during that final design
13:44 and pre-construction services in order to shape the design, in order to understand what it's gonna take to
13:51 deliver, uh, this project while keeping the plant in operation, uh, and deliver it on time by 2032.
13:59 Uh, and so, um, charles sro, assistant director of engineering is going to give you more detailed updates,
14:06 um, including an update on the cost, uh, will be coming forward to City Council in March, uh,
14:13 for an overall cost for this project of $1.5 billion, as well as an increase in our loan from
14:19 the epa as part of their wia program.
14:23 So we'll give you more information right now.
14:25 Thank you. Thank you director.
14:28 For the record, I'm charles sro and my responsible area is the delivery and implementation of Austin waters capital
14:34 improvement projects. And walnut creek is one of those projects.
14:39 Okay. Austin has two centralized, uh, water treatment plants, uh, walnut creek wastewater treatment plant in the south
14:47 Austin regional wastewater treatment plant.
14:49 Both are rated today at 75 million gallons per day capacity.
14:53 The walnut creek wastewater treatment plant is in district one.
14:56 It's located along 9 6 9, uh, boulevard, uh, mk boulevard.
15:01 It's east of us 180 3.
15:04 It serves north Austin.