City staff briefed the council on a proposed raw-water pipeline concept that would tap the West Central Texas Municipal Water Supply District's existing line near FM 717 and run roughly 24 miles to the city's water treatment plant. "What we would do is tap into that line ... put it in tank, and store it up to repump it so that they can't pressurize it all the way back to town," the City Manager said, outlining the need for storage tanks, pump manifolds, a small service building and a generator at the tap site.

Staff presented operational numbers and reuse opportunities. The City Manager described filter backwash volumes and existing lagoon storage: "...we periodically had to do a procedure called backwashing the filter ... if you look at our numbers, it's 200 to 300,000 gallons a day." He said ongoing lagoon improvements will yield about 1 million gallons of storage capacity and that "at a minimum, I could see a scenario where people getting 200 or 300,000 gallons a day in that backwash water. And we know at a minimum ... we can pump 850,000 gallons a day. Now we've got 1,300,000 gallons to work with." He noted the city's normal lake withdrawal is "somewhere between 3 and 4,000,000 gallons a day," so the pipeline could offset a material share of demand during dry periods.

Staff also discussed reclaimed wastewater reuse and permitting: "We think we could possibly get permitted to run it back to the headworks ... but the key part is the chemical composition of that water is going to be different than raw water ... [TCEQ] would only permit us if we have a pretreatment process," the City Manager said, describing the potential need for an additional tank and pretreatment facility at the sewer plant before introduction to the potable system.

Council and staff discussed contractual and volume questions with West Central. The City Manager said he exchanged email with West Central's executive director and relayed that West Central indicated "if your max take was no more than 2,000,000 gallons a day, ... we're we wouldn't even notice it from the valuable water that went through there." The City Manager asked the council to authorize inclusion of this option in the planned $100,000 PK water study: "part of the reason I wanted to bring this up in the budget discussion more is I hope it doesn't take this much, but that $100,000 that we're putting toward a PK water study, we'd like the council to consider studying this alternative." Staff recommended obtaining clearer commitments or terms from West Central before spending study funds.

No binding agreements were executed at the meeting. Staff said they will pursue feasibility work, confirm contractual terms and volumes with West Central, and include the option in the PK water study if council agrees.