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Infrastructure and Water Resources

Moving Forward

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As San Antonio continues to grow and expand, it becomes increasingly critical to properly maintain our water infrastructure. And the same goes for our need to diversify our water resources.

SAWS added 8,637 new water customers in 2004. In 2003 we added 5,621 water customers and the year before that we added 6,303. That’s more than 20,000 new water customers in only three years! Additionally, we provide wastewater services to our water customers and to other municipalities and military installations in and around Bexar County. And our wastewater accounts have also grown by a steady 3% during this same period.

SAWS also has 29 heating and cooling customers including federal and city buildings, and hotels in the downtown area and industrial and military accounts at Kelly USA and at Brooks City Base. We also serve 53 recycled water accounts that rely on us for their irrigation and cooling tower needs.

Keeping pace with one of the fastest growing regions in the country is indeed a challenge, but it’s a task we plan to meet head on.

We’ve outlined a plan to replace our oldest pipes and pumps in the system. In 2004, thanks to the extra financial support from our ratepayers, we tackled over $107 million in infrastructure repairs, replacements and upgrades in water and wastewater mains, pumps, tanks and throughout our treatment facilities.

Replacing mains and sewer lines on a scheduled basis is typically 3-4 times less expensive than making emergency repairs. For instance, SAWS had three major emergency projects that alone that accounted for $5 million in repairs.

Some of our most notable infrastructure and water resources projects in 2004 included:

• The Twin Oaks Aquifer Storage and Recovery Plant – This milestone project marked several “firsts”…the first major project completely funded through the Water Supply Fee; SAWS’ first major underground water storage facility; and SAWS’ first drinking water treatment plant. Twin Oaks ASR is also the second largest aquifer storage and recovery project in the nation and is a key step in fulfilling our strategy for expanding water resources.
  
  
• Interconnect Transfer Projects – This three-mile pipeline will allow us to transfer wastewater from the aging Salado Water Recycling Center (WRC) to the Dos Rios WRC, and ultimately allow us to close Salado, reducing operations costs.
  
  
• Micron Pump Station – An essential water production facility that will help meet the drinking water needs of the rapidly growing Northwest area of the city . The new pump station can produce 20 million gallons of drinking water each day, which will serve about 141,000 customers.
  
  
• Edwards Aquifer Water Rights Additions – Through an aggressive program of purchases, leases and agricultural conservation, SAWS has boosted its inventory of Edwards water to over 190,000 acre-feet, with an additional 38,000 acre-feet of leased water rights.
  
  
• Recharge Initiatives – Through an agreement with regional partners, SAWS is researching ways to improve the volume of water recharged into the Edwards Aquifer using small retention dams and brush management.