Bastrop City Council gets update on new wastewater plant

The Bastrop City Council spent much of its meeting Tuesday discussing contracts and partnerships that will prime the city’s new wastewater treatment plant for completion in January.

According to a news release from the company building the facility, the wastewater treatment plant will be able to process 6 million gallons of water per day. Construction started in May, and the project includes three wells to pump water from the Simsboro Aquifer.

“Conversion of the city’s water supply source to deep groundwater wells will provide the city with a reliable, resilient drinking water supply,” the release said.

The City Council unanimously approved an amendment to a contract with engineering firm Freese and Nichols to oversee the construction of the wastewater treatment plant.

Kendall King, a Freese and Nichols group manager, said the city and his firm originally signed the design contract for this project in July 2020. He said the contract also included construction phase services from Freese and Nichols until the project’s completion, per the former city manager’s request.

“It was a little unusual at that time to include construction phase services in that design contract,” King said. “Often, we don’t know how long that construction project is going to last before we start design. … We estimated what we thought that duration would be at 16 months.”

King said the pandemic impacted the construction timeline due to supply chain issues. He said construction generally takes twice as long as it did before the pandemic. The construction schedule expanded to 28 months when the city hired a construction manager a few months after it signed the design contract with Freese and Nichols.

The council’s approval of the contract’s amendment will extend Freese and Nichols’ construction phase services for an additional 11 months until the project’s completion next January, aligning the contract with the current 28-month timeline. Those services include construction oversight and management. The amendment should not cost the city more than $516,975.

The City Council also approved two items related to the city’s new partnership with utility provider Corix and Elon Musk’s companies, SpaceX and the Boring Company, to provide wastewater service in unincorporated Bastrop County along FM 969 and FM 1209.

Road maintenance agreements approved

The City Council also unanimously approved two interlocal agreements as a part of the city’s street maintenance program. Assistant City Manager Andres Rosales said the city will work with the county and Bastrop County Water Control and Improvement District #2 to maintain roads in shared jurisdictions. For example, the city will pay Bastrop County to maintain the portions of Lovers Lane and Hoffman Road within the city limits.

“(The county is) already going to be there working,” Rosales said. “We’re going to buy the material and allow them to continue all the way through the city limits.”

Four streets in Tahitian Village call the city of Bastrop and BCWID #2 home, so the city will pay the water district to maintain the roads. They include Aloha Lane, Reva Court, Koui Court and Kohala Court.

Additionally, the City Council unanimously approved Mayor Lyle Nelson’s latest appointments to the Main Street Board. Richard Smarzik, Kathryn Lang, Christopher Higgins and Judith Magana will each take a seat on the board.