Round Rock warns people to stay out of Brushy Creek as city searches for pipeline breaks

The city of Round Rock is trying to figure out why an average of?up?to 4?million extra gallons of creek water or groundwater are flowing daily into the Brushy Creek Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Officials are asking people not to get into Brushy Creek downstream from the treatment plant?at 3939 U.S. 79 in Round Rock?because the overloaded?facility has not been able to?adequately treat?the water it discharges into the creek.

The inadequate treatment has caused the?wastewater plant to dump sludge into the waterway, said Michael Thane, the city's utility director.?

Sludge is composed of solids that are usually removed during the?wastewater treatment process.?

The extra volume of water pouring into the plant is causing the city to break the discharge limits imposed by?the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, according to a city news release.

The city has hired a contractor?to search this week for large pipeline breaks, said Thane.

The plant?can?treat 20 million gallons of water daily, he said.?It?averages 18?million to 19 million gallons a day but the extra water has been causing it to?average?23?million to 24 million gallons daily, he said.

The facility can usually handle 21.5?million gallons of wastewater a day but it is in the middle of an expansion that has decreased some of its capacity, Thane?said.?

The city has temporarily brought?an additional older plant back online to divert 1.7 million gallons of wastewater per day from the main regional plant to enhance treatment capacity, the release said.

Officials are sure the extra water coming into the plant is not wastewater?because they have done tests along the pipelines?that show decreasing amounts of ammonia in the water, Thane said. "It's an indication that we got that the sewage is being diluted with fresh water," he said.

"A lot of the pipe follows Brushy Creek," he said. "The suspect areas are in the upstream portion of the (major sewer line)?where it crosses the creek or runs along the creek," he said. He said there are 39 miles of pipeline in the creek area.

The contractor, Ace Pipe Cleaning, is also investigating whether there are breaks in large pipelines in construction areas where?Hairy Man and Brushy Creek roads are being expanded.

Officials first noticed the flow starting to increase to the wastewater treatment plant at 3939 U.S. 79 in Round Rock?in May, Thane?said.?At that time, neighbors downstream of the plant who liked to fish and hang out at the creek noticed the water was not as clear as what they were used to seeing, he said.?

For several months the city used its own cameras to inspect wastewater pipelines that were 24 inches or smaller but could not?find any problems with them, said Thane.

Round Rock hired the contractor for $46,000 to inspect the larger pipes because the city doesn't have the equipment to examine them, he said.?

He said he doesn't know?exactly when the contractor might find a problem but it could be as soon as this week.

The Brushy Creek Wastewater?Treatment Plant?serves the cities of Round Rock, Austin, Leander and Cedar Park. Round Rock operates the facility.?

Round Rock?officials have been discussing?the issue of the inadequately treated wastewater entering Brushy Creek with the TCEQ, Thane said. The TCEQ advised the city to put up signs warning people to stay out of the creek, he said.

Once the city fixes the problem of the extra water entering the plant,?it will plan measures such as vacuuming up the sludge in Brushy Creek, said Thane.

"We want the creek to be clean, too," he said.

The expansion of the wastewater facility is expected to be complete in the summer of 2023. It will allow the plant to handle 30 million gallons of water a day.

The expansion will also allow the plant to use?treatment processes to lower the amount of chemicals such as phosphorus that are discharged into the creek?to meet new TCEQ limits, Thane said.