Council agrees to staff negotiation for privately funded duckweed wastewater pilot

A private developer and consultant asked the Hutto City Council to allow a 12‑month, privately funded pilot that would test a greenhouse-based duckweed treatment to polish municipal effluent to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Type 1 reclaimed-water standards.

Michael Martinez, the presenting developer, said the system would operate on about one‑third of an adjacent parcel and treat roughly 20,000 gallons per day, about 2% of the plant's capacity. "Every drop that enters the system returns the same permitted discharge pathway already in use today," Martinez said, emphasizing that the proposal would not create a new discharge route or require changes to plant operations. He added that investors would pre-fund site restoration and equipment removal so the city would bear no decommissioning cost.

Paul Skillicorn, the technical lead, described a three‑stage greenhouse process (two nutrient-removal stages using duckweed plus a polishing greenhouse) with third‑party lab verification. Councilmembers pressed on noise, duckweed containment and data access; the presenters said acoustic shielding would be included, the duckweed would be contained and weekly publicly available reports with raw data would be supplied.

Council did not execute a final agreement but voted unanimously to direct staff to negotiate a site‑use agreement incorporating city legal review, escrowed decommissioning funds and that the city would receive all performance data; the final agreement must return to council for approval.