Austin Water

About the Utility

Austin Water is a department of the City of Austin and the City’s second-largest enterprise. It provides water, wastewater, reclaimed water, conservation and environmental protection services to retail and wholesale customers in Austin and surrounding areas, and has supplied water for more than a century. City Council adopts its long-range water and drought plans and approves rate changes, so supply strategy and pricing are set within city government. Water Forward 2024 cites 1.17 million retail and wholesale customers across a 538-square-mile service area, while federal drinking water records list a population served of 1,115,323, a different measure of the same system.

Water System

Austin draws its water from the Colorado River as it flows through Lake Travis and Lake Austin, in the Highland Lakes system managed by the Lower Colorado River Authority. A long-term contract with the authority secures up to 325,000 acre-feet a year of firm supply, roughly double the peak annual diversion. Its three plants provide 335 million gallons a day of rated treatment capacity. Customers cut use from more than 160 gallons per person per day in 2011 to about 131 in 2023, when the Infrastructure Leak Index stood at 4.18. Drought and treatment disruption are the main risks: Winter Storm Uri and a turbidity event at Ullrich each forced a citywide boil water notice.

Wastewater System

Austin Water also collects and treats the city’s wastewater. Two main plants, Walnut Creek and South Austin Regional, hold 150 million gallons a day of permitted capacity, served by more than 2,996 miles of sanitary mains and 137 City-owned lift stations. Walnut Creek alone treats wastewater for more than half of Austin. Budget standards have aimed to keep reportable overflows below three per 100 miles of sewer a year. A reclaimed water network of 72.8 miles of main supplies non-potable water to 185 properties, anchoring a growing reuse programme.

Investment & Priorities

Capital spending is led by wastewater capacity. Austin Water has broken ground on the $1.5 billion expansion of the Walnut Creek plant to 100 million gallons a day, adding nutrient removal, ultraviolet disinfection and a flood wall, with up to $1 billion of federal WIFIA loans in the funding plan. Spending has run ahead of plan, with 111.30% of planned capital project funds invested in 2024-25. The proposed budget attributes forecast cost growth largely to capital investment and scheduled debt service.

Sustainability & Resilience

Resilience planning centres on Water Forward, the century-long water resource plan updated in 2024 with stricter conservation and drought rules. Its strategies combine conservation, reuse, aquifer storage and recovery, now in study, and water loss control, with a goal of cutting the Infrastructure Leak Index to 3.0 by 2040. GoPurple requires and rewards reclaimed and onsite water reuse in new development. After Winter Storm Uri, Austin Water published an after-action report as its blueprint for extreme winter weather.

Key Challenges

1. Securing Highland Lakes supply as population grows and drought tests Water Forward.
2. Delivering the Walnut Creek expansion within its loan-backed funding plan.
3. Reducing water loss toward the 2040 leakage goal.
4. Maintaining treatment reliability after citywide boil water notices in 2021 and 2022.
5. Balancing rising capital and debt costs with residential affordability.

Major Projects