City of Horseshoe Bay
Official Website of the City of Horseshoe Bay, Texas

 

WATER SERVICES

Water Treatment   The City of Horseshoe Bay began providing treated water to Horseshoe Bay in 1973. The first treatment facility, constructed in 1972 was replaced by a conventional treatment plant in 1978 that was capable of treating 1.0 millions gallons per day (MGD). In 1984 the facility was upgraded to a 3.3 MGD facility and the latest modification was completed in May 2006.  The Central Water Treatment Plant is now capable of producing 4.0 MGD and additional filtration modules can be installed into pre-piped connectors to produce a final production flow of 8.0 MGD.
The City obtains untreated (raw water) from Lake LBJ on the Colorado River under a purchasing contract with the Lower Colorado River Authority.  The current contract is to purchase up to 1,403 acre-feet, or 457 million gallons of raw water per year. The City operates two Water Treatment Plants. The facilities consistently produce water meeting or exceeding both state and federal standards. [Report] All City operations personnel that are responsible for producing this treated water participate in advance training in an effort to insure that water quality and facilities operations remain at their best. Water produced at the Water Treatment Plants is treated with: Fluoride; a combination of Chlorine and Ammonia are added as a disinfectant in accordance with state and federal regulations, aluminum sulfate (alum) and polymer for coagulation and acid and caustic for pH adjustments to achieve maximum total organic carbon (TOC) prior to disinfection which was designed to lower disinfection by-products to greater levels than mandated by state and federal regulatory agencies. All chemicals added during treatment and distributions are certified (NSF 60) safe for potable water use. The City Water Treatment Plants provide water to City customers in Horseshoe Bay, Horseshoe Bay West, Horseshoe Bay South, Bay Country, Pecan Creek, The Trails of LBJ, Sienna Creek, and Escondido. The City also furnishes treated water to Oakridge and Sandy Harbor Subdivisions under contracts and provides out of City services to the Hills, Quail Ridge, and Deerhaven Subdivisions. Due to the drought that occurred in 1999, the West Water Treatment Plant construction was expedited and was online in September 2001. This plant is a modular treatment facility with a capacity of one million gallons per day. The site was designed to accommodate a second one million gallon treatment unit within the existing building. The total cost of the facility was $2.2 million dollars. The Central Water Treatment Plant, completed in May 2006 combines conventional coagulation and settling with a state of the art filtration system.  PALL Water Processing supplied the new filtration equipment describes as "Microza Membrane Technology".  The PALL filtration system was developed to provide a 5 Log (99.999%) reduction of Cryptosporidium and Giardia lamblia Cysts with a 0.1 -micron (0.0000039 inch) membrane filter.  Along with new treatment equipment installed at the Central Water Treatment, a SCADA System, (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System) including fire and security systems have been installed to monitor and control the water production process.   Water Distribution After the water treatment process, the potable water is distributed through a network of storage tanks and piping, including mains, laterals, and service lines, in order to reach each customer.  This Water Distribution System consists of over 96 miles of pipeline, 1 elevated storage tank (200,000 gallons), 3 ground storage tanks (2.45 million gallons), 560 hydrants, 2920 meters, and over 950 valves.   We are constantly working to upgrade and improve our water distribution system. In 2008  our in-house crews completed over 1800 work orders eliminating leaks, main line problems, improving system pressures, and maintaining fire fighting flows, while installing 75 new water taps to the system.   To ensure the quality of our drinking water we take over 80 samples each year at various points throughout the system.  These samples are delivered to an approved laboratory for analysis and the results are forwarded to the state.  All of this is to ensure that your water supply is safe and dependable each time you turn on the faucet.
Return to City Services Menu Return to City Home Page