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Public commenter presses council on aquifer reinjection and outside‑city water commitments
Summary
Resident Steven Van Horn told the council he cannot find clear discussion of a proposed $5 million wastewater injection well in the budget documents and raised an article claim that a defense supplier plans to scale missile production; he asked how city commitments to provide water outside city zones might affect future demand and transparency.
At two points in the public hearings on the FY2027 budget and the ICIP, resident Steven Van Horn told the governing body he was concerned about a plan for wastewater injection and what he described as a Department of War news item referencing a large weapons purchase tied to an industrial expansion.
Van Horn said he had provided councilors with copies of a short news article mentioning Castellanos’s land agreement and the Department of War seeking authorization and appropriations to purchase more than 12,000 missiles over five years. He asked council whether city commitments to provide water outside municipal zones and any implicit encouragement of facility expansion had been considered in planning for future demand.
On the budget topic, Van Horn said he could not find discussion in planning or summary documents about a wastewater injection well and cited a $5,000,000 figure for another injection well; he said permit volumes suggested higher permitted injection (365 million gallons a year) versus reported recent reinjection volumes (about 36 million gallons), and asked why the matter seemed absent from public materials.
Council and staff responded by pointing to the budget book and the ICIP executive summary, which staff said includes the reinjection funding offer (city manager and staff cited the relevant page), and noted that additional detail is available in the budget book and project detail. Councilors and staff did not adopt policy or change funding in response to the public comment during the meeting; the ICIP and budget were approved as presented.
Van Horn’s assertions about the Department of War article and missile figures were raised as public comment and not confirmed or disputed with documentary evidence during the meeting.
