An Early History of Austin’s Water Conservation Programs

by Paul Robbins

In This Article
​• Austin’s climate is prone to periods of extended drought. Due to population growth and environmental trends, we are as little as 15 years away from a catastrophic (Highland-Lakes-going-dry) water shortage.

• Austin established an office of water conservation in the early 1980s to manage water and wastewater shortfalls.

• Between 1983 and 2003, about 14% of Austin’s non-industrial water use was reduced by the office’s programs and policies, including rebates for low-water use fixtures and appliances, building code amendments, rebates for businesses, and encouragement of low-water use landscapes.

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In July of 2024, the Save Our Spring Alliance posted a story entitled “The Coming Austin Water Shortage” on potential, and likely, water shortages that will afflict Austin in the coming decades, and how it will impact the city’s future.
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The story showed that the combined effects of drought, global warming, lake sedimentation, population growth, and stagnating water conservation efforts could leave the Central Texas water storage system, the Highland Lakes, dry for periods of time as soon as 2040.

To address this potential emergency, SOS is publishing the following five-part series on water conservation. These stories discuss the history, progress, and lack of progress, with Austin’s water stewardship strategies and programs.

Looking closely at Austin’s water conservation programs since they began in the 1980s, it would not be fair to avoid acknowledging the substantial progress that has been made. But it would also not be honest to avoid criticizing Austin for complacency.
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It is irresponsible to postpone action to deal with this imminent threat. With current population growth, Austin is one major drought away from a catastrophic (Highland-Lakes-going-dry) water shortage.

Water Conservation Part 1: An Early History of Austin’s Water Conservation Programs

Austin Water Utility, Austin’s municipally owned water and wastewater utility, provides service for about 1.2 million people. Its generally reliable day-to-day service masks the volatility Austin’s water supply, both climactically and politicly.

The region’s rainfall fluctuates, sometimes dramatically. This endangers the long-term supply of one of the fastest growing areas in the country.

Austin theoretically has water rights to claim about double the volume it consumed in 2023. This is, however, a mirage. The upstream storage system of the Highland Lakes, seven artificial reservoirs upstream of Austin built between 1938 and 1960, can get critically low during periods of extended drought and overuse.

At the same time, short-sighted decisions, bad decisions, and bad luck, have sometimes left the City of Austin with insufficient infrastructure for its water and wastewater needs.

Austin used to require voter approval of the bond debt for its water utility. (This provision of the City Charter is still on the books, but is routinely ignored by the City government today.) There was a lack of voter confidence in its elected officials to control growth in the environmentally sensitive area of Southwest Austin in the late 1970s. Voter confidence was also undermined by the unrelated outrageous overruns at the South Texas Nuclear Project, in which Austin was a partner, that were occurring at the same time, dramatically raising electric rates.

Due to this lack of confidence, Austinites voted against water improvements in 1980 and again in 1981. This was partially responsible for a summer peak water capacity problem that emerged a few years later. A failure to control unlimited yard irrigation was also at fault.

On the wastewater side, the situation was worse. Austin’s high-tech boom was fueling home building at a feverish pace. Much of South Austin was served for sewage treatment by an aging and undersized Williamson Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. Starting in about 1982, the insufficient treatment capacity combined with heavy rains, caused the plant’s holding ponds to overflow, resulting in untreated sewage spilled into the Williamson Creek and the Colorado River on multiple occasions.
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Austin was thus sued by the state’s environmental office. For a time, new building in South Austin was curtailed. In near desperation to respond to health threats and still continue home building, raw sewage was actually trucked from the insufficient Williamson Creek plant to treatment plants with more capacity.

As part of lawsuit settlements, Austin built more emergency treatment capacity at Williamson Creek in 1984 and 1985, amounting to $13 million (about $40 million in 2025 dollars). These operated until 1986, when a new treatment plant at Onion Creek was finally built. There was almost no salvage value from the Williamson Creek retrofits when this troubled plant was retired.

Why was this such a mess? There was also no centralized data tracking system in place to project sewage capacity shortfalls until they were actually occurring.

To respond to these challenges, the City government established an office in 1983 to promote water and wastewater conservation and manage regulatory response to water and wastewater shortages. Over a period of two decades, the office claimed a number of achievements. Here’s a quick snapshot of those efforts:

• Managing Early Water Restrictions – Some of its early work included management of the “Emergency Water Conservation Ordinance” to reduce peak demand during the summer shortages. It limited landscape irrigation to once every 5 days, with violations punishable by fines of up to $500 per violation. Enforcement was active between 1983 and 1986.

• Mitigating Wastewater Emergency – In response to the Williamson Creek sewage fiasco, the City committed to reduce water consumption through direct free door-to-door installation of showerheads and toilet dams (a plastic wedge creating an air pocket to displace a gallon of flush water in the tank). It also ordered the replacement of old toilets in multifamily and commercial buildings larger than 3.5 gallons/per tank.

• Encouraging Low-Water Use Plants – In 1984, the office began a program to educate the public on native plant xeriscape landscapes to reduce landscape irrigation. In 1994, the City began requiring that new commercial landscapes must use xeriscape plants, and also began offering xeriscape rebates for Residential landscapes.

• Mandating or Encouraging Low-Water Use Fixtures – The office encouraged the City to adopt a plumbing code calling for efficient 1.6-gallon/flush in toilets in 1991, which dropped again to 1.28/flush gallons in 2010. AWU also began offering rebates for low-flush toilet retrofits in existing homes in 1993, continuing until 2012. These rebates are still offered to commercial businesses that exceed the plumbing code.

• Business Retrofits – About two-thirds of Austin’s water volume is consumed by Commercial, Multifamily, and Industrial customers. Since 1996, Austin has awarded rebates to businesses that have saved water through improved equipment and processes. This includes Austin’s largest customers, such as commercial buildings and wafer fabs.

• Irrigation Audits and Retrofits – In 1992, Austin began offering audits of Residential landscapes to teach water customers how to lower consumption through proper use of irrigation system.

• Clothes Washer Rebates – Between 1998 and 2013, Austin provided rebates for water-efficient clothes washers.

• Meters for Multiunit Dwellings –Apartment buildings that use a single meter for all their tenants are prodigious water wasters since there is no incentive for individual tenants to save water. Since 2000, new 2- to 4-unit dwellings have been required to be individually metered. Since 2001, all new apartments have been required to be sub-metered so that the apartment managers or their designees could charge each unit for actual water consumed. Since 2000, all new commercial buildings have been required to have separate meters for irrigation.

• Reclaimed Water – Reclaimed water refers to wastewater treated to a high-quality standard and reused for non-potable purposes such as landscape irrigation and cooling towers rather than discharged into the Colorado River. Austin has used this resource to water golf courses since 1974, in-house use at its wastewater treatment plants, and water to Sandhill Power Plant. It began expanding its system in 2005 to serve more commercial customers.

These policies had a collective measured effect: between 1983 and 2003, non-industrial per capita per day use fell about 14%. However, there is much more progress to be made.

TIMELINE: GROWTH OF AUSTIN WATER CONSERVATION PROGRAMS

1980 – Water treatment plant bonds rejected.

1981 – Water treatment plant bonds rejected.

≈ 1982 – Major overflows at Williamson Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant begin.

1984 – Austin pays $100,000 fine to state for sewage leaks; building moratorium in South Austin enacted; trucking sewage used to end moratorium begins.

1984-1986 – Summer irrigation restrictions enforced.

1984 – Native “xeriscape” plant education program begins.

1984-1985 ­– Emergency treatment capacity at Williamson Creek plant comes online

1985 – Commercial and multifamily buildings required to retrofit (if necessary) to minimum 3.5-gallon/flush toilets.

1986 – New sewage treatment plant at Onion Creek begins operation; Williamson Creek plant retired.

1986-1990 – Door-to-door retrofit program for showerheads and toilet dams conducted.

1992 – Residential irrigation reduction rebates begin.

1991 – City mandates 1.6 gallons/flush toilets in new buildings.

1993-2011 – Rebates offered for low-flush toilet retrofits.

1994 – New Commercial landscapes required to use xeriscape plants.
1996 – Commercial retrofit rebate program begins.

1998-2013 – Rebates provided for water-efficient clothes washers.

2000 – New 2 to 4-unit dwellings required to be individually metered; new commercial buildings required to have separate meters for irrigation.

2001 – New multifamily buildings required to be submetered so each unit can be separately billed.

2010 – City mandates 1.28 gallons/flush toilets in new buildings.

The second and third stories in this series will discuss the positive and disappointing parts of Austin’s more modern water conservation policies.