Clean drinking water is something most Americans don’t think about on a daily basis, that is, unless you’re forced to boil it every time you’re thirsty or need to cook.
Killeen residents experienced their second citywide boil-water notice in the past 12 months Sunday — the first being a historic, 10-day-long notice in October.
In all, more than 275,000 Killeen-Fort Hood area residents, and hundreds of businesses, from Belton to Copperas Cove were affected during the two-day boil-water notice that started last Sunday.
On Mother’s Day, May 8, the Belton Lake water treatment plant that supplies water to much of the area lost all power for about three hours forcing the cities of Killeen, Copperas Cove, Fort Hood, Harker Heights, Nolanville and Belton to issue boil-water notices for all residents.
Many businesses, including Starbucks, Dutch Bros and Black Rifle Coffee Company, were closed Monday because of the lack of potable water, equating to a loss of revenue for those businesses and their employees. Some car washes and laundromats were forced to close down temporarily in an effort to conserve water.
Electric company Oncor took responsibility Wednesday for the power outage that caused the area to lose access to potable water.
In response to questions from the Herald, Oncor Area Manager Jose Guzman confirmed the Sunday outage occurred on Waterworks Road, the same road where the Belton Water Treatment Plant is located.
“The outage was caused by a connection failure on a piece of equipment — this was an isolated incidence of equipment failure that has since been repaired,” Guzman said by email Tuesday.
It remains to be seen what Oncor will do to prevent another wide-scale outage from occurring.
BACKUP POWER
As the weather continues to become more extreme thanks to climate change, entities that provide water, including Bell County Water Control and Improvement District No. 1 — which runs the Belton water plant and a new plant on Stillhouse Hollow Lake — are looking for ways to weather-proof their systems.
Soon after historic Winter Storm Uri brought the entire state of Texas to a standstill in Feb. 2021, Bell County WCID-1 General Manager Ricky Garrett said he and the board began working on a plan for “full capacity standby generation.”
Bell County WCID-1 is working with Josh Coleman of the L5E Group to obtain backup power generation for the Belton Lake Water Treatment Facility.
Coleman explained to the WCID-1 board of directors at the April 27 meeting that a contractor had been preliminarily selected.
“On July 28, 2021 the board unanimously approved an agreement whereby L5E would put together a Request for Proposal package that would enable the District to run the entire water plant at capacity for up to 100 hours of continuous service without disruption,” Garrett said by email Thursday.
The proposed natural gas backup power generation would switch on immediately, he said, in the event the plant loses all electricity again.
A formal recommendation, he said, will be made for the board to approve at the upcoming meeting on May 25.
Coleman explained on April 27 that the reason the proposal was not ready for approval earlier is because of a holdup with gas provider Atmos Energy, which was reported to have been quoting much higher prices than he and WCID-1 expected. Coleman also said Atmos had told them the line would be considered interruptible since it was looking to export its excess power.
When asked if WCID-1 had a plan for a 30-day loss of power, Garrett provided the following statement.
“A 30-day outage during the winter could be managed with the planned generation installation,” he said. “During peak flow conditions, it would depend on the reliability of the natural gas powering the gensets and reliability of the gensets. The sizing specified would allow for 1 to 2 units to be out of service at a time under current flow regimes.”
The general manager added that the water plant’s experience with Oncor, the electricity provider, has been “excellent overall.”
“It should be noted that our experience with Oncor reliability has been excellent overall,” he said. “Prior to last Sunday, we do not have record of any previous incident in which ALL power was lost. Even during Uri, we could run most of our equipment, but NOT the largest pumps. Also, Oncor dispatched a crew to perform infrared thermal testing of parts of their delivery system around where the segment failed. If the temperature of any segment or device is outside the normal range for that piece, I understand a work order would be generated to repair or replace that item. Prior to winter storm Uri, an outage of 24 hours was extremely rare in Texas.”
Winter isn’t the only season putting water entities at risk, record-breaking high temperatures are currently putting a strain on the state’s power supply.
Late Friday afternoon, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, also known as ERCOT, asked Texans to conserve power during peak hours, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., after six power-generation facilities went offline citing high temperatures causing “record” demand.
Herald staff writer Thaddeus Imerman contributed to this report.
Commented
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.