Wednesday, February 25, 2026, 9:30 a.m. (Austin time), Austin City Hall
Committee: Climate, Water, Environment, and Parks Committee
The Climate, Water, Environment, and Parks Committee met with Vice Chair Paige Ellis presiding until Chair Ryan Alter arrived. The committee heard two public speakers, approved the January 28, 2026 minutes, and received three briefings: the Walnut Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant expansion and modernization (including a planned March 12 request for a $600 million contract increase to $1.5 billion total and a $1 billion EPA WIFIA loan), Austin Water's second-quarter performance measures, and the Resource Management Commission's recommendations on the Texas Gas Service franchise agreement. Austin Resource Recovery also answered follow-up questions on the on-demand brush and bulk collection program. No votes were taken on the briefings; the committee asked numerous questions and staff committed to provide follow-up data.
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.