Fair Oaks Ranch details water-line, storage and wastewater upgrades to meet growth and drought
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Summary
City leaders described plans to expand water distribution and storage—including a new elevated tank, a shared waterline with the City of Boerne and a 500,000-gallon ground-storage tank—and a two-phase upgrade to raise wastewater treatment capacity from 300,000 to 500,000 gallons per day.
Mayor Greg Maxton said water reliability remains a central concern amid ongoing drought conditions and planned city growth.
He said the city’s water supply comes roughly 60% from GBRA/Canyon Lake and the remainder from wells (42 wells connected with the system), with current aquifer monitoring at about 1,040 feet. To improve distribution and storage, the city plans to replace a water line along Deep Elkhorn Road coordinated with a road reconstruction, build an elevated storage tank on the north side of the city (on a 3-acre site co-located with City of Boerne ground storage tanks at the northernmost curve of Ammon Road), and install a new water line along Ammon Road that Boerne will also use. Engineering design for the water tower is expected to finish this year and construction is scheduled for next spring or summer.
The city has also begun constructing an additional 500,000-gallon ground storage tank at Water Plant No.5 (the site at the west end of Keeneland); the contractor poured the concrete pad and is assembling the tank off-site with completion expected this summer.
On wastewater, Maxton said the city’s treatment plant currently handles about 300,000 gallons per day at peak and that a two-phase upgrade is designed to raise capacity to 500,000 gallons per day, which the city says will meet build-out needs. Phase 1 will install larger distribution lines and pumps to move treated effluent to ponds used by the country club and will include odor-mitigation work at the plant’s headworks; construction on the upgrades is expected to start this year.
City staff also coordinated an emergency interconnect with SAWS to provide backup water and said only about one-third of residents are signed up for the Regroup emergency-notification platform—officials urged sign-ups.