New Water Treatment Plant for Austin?

Due to the terrible drought that Austin and the surrounding area has been experiencing for that past 20 months water issues have grown ever more important in the eyes of the public. This article is about the new water treatment plant they're currently attempting to decide if we need. The author seems to be arguing in favor of the water treatment plant as they say the expectancy of a water treatment plant is ~50 years and the two we have currently the Davis plant built in 1954 and the Ullrich plant built in 1969 are getting up there in age. The author also goes to lengths to say that people who oppose the new treatment plant by saying more aggressive conservation efforts would eliminate the need for a new one but with the rate of growth for Austin water usage will naturally go up. The debate over this treatment plant has been going on for 20 years now and the city council still hasn't even decided where to build it at. The author seems to be aiming the article at the people of Austin hoping to finally get some results because the longer we wait the more expensive it will be to build the thing. I'm not sure who the author of this was so it was hard for me to really evaluate their credibilty, but I think they made a good case for the water treatment plant and if we're going to build it we might as well build it sometime soon before that 508 million dollar price tag gets any bigger.


Link:Counting on greater water needs, Austin American Statesman, 9/17/2009