The City of Katy’s water reuse program was showcased during a panel discussion at the West Houston Association, during a breakfast presentation at the Junior League of Houston, 1811 Briar Oaks Lane in Houston on February 19. The topic was “Municipal Water Reuse: Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities.”

The panel featured Dave Kasper of ARKK Engineers, who also functions as the City of Katy’s city engineer. City Administrator Byron Hebert was originally scheduled to be on the panel as well, but did not attend the breakfast due to illness, a spokesperson for the City of Katy said. Other panelists included Howard Cohen of Schwartz, Page & Harding who is a WHA board member and Howard Christian, public works director for the City of Richmond. The program was moderated by Melinda Salazar of BGE.

“Water reuse and sustainability is becoming increasingly important to our region,” said Alan Steinberg, president and CEO of the WHA in opening the presentation. The region has to rely on a combination of surface water and ground water, he said. “Either way we know that they are limited precious resources.” Corpus Christi’s water reserves have fallen to nine percent of capacity, and the city is under drought restrictions, he said. Water use is going to require public-private partnerships and will require special districts to make it happen, Steinberg said.

Kasper said that water reuse planning was critical for the City of Katy. Although the city is on 100 percent groundwater until 2030, Katy has had to drill two wells in the past few years in order to keep pace with growth, at a cost of $3.5 million each. The new water reuse project is going to take the pressure off those wells, he said, subsequently telling the Katy Times that the current reuse project is expected to provide ten percent of the city’s water needs. Treated water is currently funneled in the local bayou system, he said.

The system that is being built now in Katy will serve the Katy Mills Mall area and that particular area is one of the worst areas of subsidence in the county, Kasper said. The project initially faced some technical hurdles from an engineering standpoint, with very small footprint and space had to be economized. There was not a lot of room for onsite storage, so the city is looking for opportunities in the future to expand that, he said.

Christian said that the City of Richmond has been producing reuse water for over ten years. The original system was very small and simple, using a community lake system which was used to irrigate community right of ways. “You can start small and expand,” he said. Ultimately, storage is needed to produce the maximum amount of benefit, he said. The Veranda development had the foresight to install a water reuse network, he said, and the city was later able to use that system. Soft commitments were made even before the development came to life, said Schwartz, noting that the project began with “basically a blank slate.” There was a lot of advance planning which, along with the soft commitments, developed into a viable system. “It’s a lot easier to build the system from the ground up,” he said.

Salazar asked about upfront investments for the projects and how those costs were balanced with long-term benefits. Christian said that as the Veranda development came in, the city of Richmond talked about capital cost to expand. That led to some reuse contracts, and it provided for a ”take or pay” contract which was fair to both parties, but ensured from the city’s standpoint that there was a return on investment in less than ten years. Schwartz said from a developer’s perspective, they need to know the planned usage for the water reuse, and that the cost can be programmed into the reimbursements they will receive. He predicted that in the future, many people will not buy into a community unless it has a water reuse system. He said that there is a completely different set of criteria for communities that are already developed – who is the customer, what are the economics of treating and transporting the water, who is going to pay for the transport, will there be public/private partnership, can the project be paid for with bonds.

Kasper said that Katy’s project required upfront costs of $2.5 million for the treatment equipment and $1.5 million for the 18,000 feet of pipeline to transport the water to the mall. The system has a “break-even” point of 12.5 years “as long as we use the system,” he said. Kasper also noted that during past droughts, when the city of Katy had to impose water restrictions, the trees and plants around the mall suffered. “This project allows us to keep the mall area beautiful which is very important to us,” he said. Kasper also said that the water from this project is cheaper, at $1.68 per thousand gallons compared to $5.00 per thousand gallons for potable water.

Christian said that from city of Richmond’s perspective, “blunting the peak demand in the summer is huge.” Their reuse system will take a million gallons of water per day off of a peak day of 6 million gallon day in the summer. That saves equipment over long haul and during worst time of year and saves future capital costs he said.

Panelists said that water reuse projects takes a lot of creativity to solve a myriad of issues – the point source for the effluent, the treatment system, the storage capacity, the location for it to be storge and the logistics of transporting the treated water from point A to point B, along with the challenge of “who pays for it.”

Asked how the City of Katy is educating its citizens about the reuse project, Kasper said That is a future consideration for sure.” The current project is now limited to irrigation of right of ways and parks, along with the mall, but as it is expanded, it “will require all hands on deck” with public meetings and forums to inform citizens.

A future challenge for water reuse is treating and using industrial wastewater, panelists said. “Any time you treat that kind of water, there are byproducts you have to deal with,” one expert said, expressing the hope that there would be advances in technology to allow municipalities to treat and reuse all types of water.