Full Description

San Marcos, Texas, nestled between Austin and San Antonio, offers many resourcesto the community: natural springs that feed the San Marcos River; a popular stateuniversity; a strong, well managed local economy; and a high quality wastewatereffluent. The City recently approached and resolved how they would apply amonetary value to the wastewater effluent, including a commodity charge. Thenewly expanded San Marcos 9.0 million gallons per day (MGD) Advanced TertiaryWastewater Treatment Plant is a state-of-the-art facility that produces some ofthe highest quality effluent in the state of Texas. Since coming on line lastyear, the quality of the effluent has consistently been better than permit limitsrequire. The high level of treatment and a voluntary upgrade to UV disinfectionwere part of the City's commitment to preserving the water quality of the SanMarcos River. One of the indirect dividends to the community for their investmentin the treatment facility has been the availability of 3.6 MGD, at a minimum, ofhigh quality effluent at a location convenient to the areas of growth. In thisregion of the state, where use of groundwater is discouraged and surface water isbecoming less available and more costly, the effluent is becoming a marketablecommodity. Applications of reuse from turf irrigation to augmenting the potablewater supply have been considered by the City. An industrial reuse applicationhas been the first to materialize. The City will provide the majority of theircurrently available effluent to American National Power, an international powerco-generation company that is building the Hays Energy Project, a 1100 megawatt(MW) combined cycle gas burning plant south of the City. An initial step in theCity committing to this project was setting the rates for the reuse water and forreceiving the wastewater from the co-generation plant. This paper documents SanMarcos' basis for setting the rates and the market value of the effluent. Includes 7 references, figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 01/01/2000 Number of Pages: 11File Size: 1 file , 82 KB