Boil water notices, low tank emergencies, and what the West Travis County PUA's own board record says about the cause, the fix, and the dates that matter.
Bee Cave City Hall, 4000 Galleria Parkway, Bee Cave
Agenda item VI.A is "Hamilton Pool Road Water Service Complaints." Public comment is item III: fill out the form at the door, three minutes each.
SYSTEM: WTCPUA (PWS TX2270235, ROUGHLY 20,000 CONNECTIONS)
TCEQ closes a 22-complainant complaint about the August 21 outage and boil notices (Incident 464795, received August 31) with the note that it "is being addressed during another investigation," Investigation 2159660. That investigation is the routine inspection TCEQ conducted on June 16, 2026, ten weeks before the outage. Its report does not mention the August events (complaint record, PDF).
TCEQ approves its June 16 inspection report and issues a Notice of Violation for one minor, already-resolved treatment issue. The report also orders the PUA to submit a capacity planning report because the 1340 pressure plane (the County Line pump station system on Highway 290) has reached 86 percent of its pump capacity. That figure rests on a revised connection count the PUA sent TCEQ on August 27, the day after the outage (details).
Boil water notice rescinded, 2:14 PM, for Provence, Belvedere, Rocky Creek, and Homestead. The PUA's notice states that on August 26 TCEQ required the utility to issue the boil notice due to conditions in the system, that corrective actions have been taken, and that lab results provided to TCEQ show the water no longer requires boiling as of August 28. The last of the August boil notices is lifted; Stage 3 watering restrictions remain in effect.
PUA customer notice, 6:51 PM: Provence, Rocky Creek, Belvedere, and Homestead remain under a boil water notice while the utility awaits laboratory results, expected the following day. Per the notice, a boil water notice stays in effect until the PUA sends a separate notice confirming it has been lifted.
Residents across the Hamilton Pool Road corridor woke to little or no water pressure, with single digit PSI readings at some homes and others out of water entirely. As of that morning, no public notice had been issued. The outage reached the schools: Bee Cave Middle School lost water pressure completely, closed campus restrooms, and offered early student pickup, and Lake Travis ISD placed Rough Hollow Elementary, Bee Cave Middle, and Lake Travis Middle under boil water protocols, shutting off fountains and hand washing stations and distributing bottled water, per notices sent to families that day. That same day, the PUA published overnight metering data for the system (next section).
Systemwide boil water notice due to low water pressure. Second emergency notice in five days.
Stage 3 watering restrictions take effect. The PUA's alert states the trigger plainly: under its Drought Contingency Plan, Stage 3 may be implemented "when the 20% reduction target established under Stage 2 is not achieved." In other words, Stage 2 conservation did not work.
Boil water notice for Hamilton Pool Road customers.
Emergency notice: discontinue all irrigation, tank levels extremely low.
Boil water advisory for Belvedere and Provence, sent at 9:16 AM through the PUA's Voyent alert system. It opens with "please turn off all irrigation to preserve water right now as our tanks are quickly getting depleted" and says TCEQ required the boil notice because of high demand. This notice was not posted on the PUA's news page, and it is not on the boil water notice list TCEQ printed in its August 31 report (the notice as a Belvedere customer received it, PDF, recipient details removed).
In response to a resident's Public Information Act request, the utility releases daily plant production records for January through June 2026 (what they show).
Board agenda includes a firm water supply agreement with GBRA (the WaterSECURE project), a Texas Water Development Board grant application, and a director's item on engaging additional engineering firms to keep priority projects on schedule. Engineer's report: expansion at the 60 percent design milestone, completion December 2027, plus a study of an interim 0.5 MGD connection from Travis County MUD 4.
Boil water notice after a water main break.
Engineers tell the board that delivery dates for four Highway 290 system capital projects will not be met. The Reunion Ranch WCID board formally requests a written accounting of the causes of these incidents, corrective actions, and the timeline to meet full demand.
General Manager tells the board the PUA cannot serve additional customers until new supplies are identified. Commercial service extension applications halted; waiting list begins.
Systemwide boil water notice after treated water turbidity exceeded the state standard, indicating the plant's filters were not performing as required. The utility's 2025 water quality report later confirmed this as a health-based Treatment Technique violation on November 24 (see the water quality record).
Board adopts FY26 budget and the first retail water rate adjustment since 2017, effective November 2025, citing long-term infrastructure and reliability.
At a special meeting, the board abandons the membrane plant design. The engineers' summary lists the "Current Plan with Membranes & 76.5' Bldg" at $104 million and July 2028, a "13 MGD Conventional Treatment Option" at $65 million and January 2028, and a "13 MGD Membrane 1-Story 40' Building Option" at $91 million and December 2027; both alternatives route a site plan through the City of Bee Cave. The board votes 4-0 for the conventional option and hires a consultant "to assist with the permit approval process" (minutes, PDF, page 6).
PUA public statement: plant limited to 20 MGD, expansion to 33 MGD delayed by permitting and design complications, new plant then scheduled for early 2028. Stage 2 watering restrictions retained due to limited plant capacity.
Boil water notice issued during transmission main maintenance.
TCEQ's Plan and Technical Review Section denies approval for the PUA's low-pressure membrane treatment plant, the expansion design the utility had described to TCEQ in 2023 as raising capacity "to over 26 MGD." TCEQ's 2026 inspection report records the denial and adds that the City of Bee Cave "was noted to have denied the project for failing to meet height restrictions of the city ordinance" (2026 inspection report, PDF, page 4). The denial letter itself has not been released.
Boil water notice on the Highway 290 system after storage tanks fell to critical levels during high demand.
The PUA board settles a lawsuit with the developer of Provence, raising the development's committed water service from 700 to 1,137 homes and agreeing to an expanded Hamilton Pool Road waterline paid for by the developer (Austin American-Statesman). Provence is one of the four neighborhoods placed under boil water notices in August 2026.
TCEQ inspection: the PUA's twelve wholesale contracts total 27 million gallons a day against a 20 MGD plant. TCEQ writes that the system "is over 100% of its production capacity; however, that is projected total buildout." The operations manager tells TCEQ there are "plans to add another treatment train to the plant and bring it up to at least 30 MGD." The same statement is repeated to TCEQ in 2020 (2017 report, PDF; 2020 report, PDF).
Bee Cave's council passes a resolution opposing the Provence development at the buildout its developer proposed, citing its location on the Hamilton Pool Road line, and the PUA adopts a 20% impervious cover limit for development served by that line. The board votes 5-0 to drop that limit in October 2020, weeks before settling with the developer (The Austin Independent).
TCEQ inspection of the system, then run by LCRA, records a maximum day of 18.265 million gallons on September 1, 2011, "greater than 85% of its capacity (93.1%)," and instructs the utility to "make plans on how it plans to meet future capacity needs" under state rule 291.93. TCEQ defers the item because LCRA is handing the system to the newly formed PUA the following month (2012 report, PDF). In 2015 TCEQ records that the PUA "has surpassed 85 % of its production capacity"; the PUA's operator replies that the contracted demand is "on paper" and expansion will be planned "as they are needed" (2015 record, PDF).
On August 27, 2026, the same day residents woke to little or no pressure, the PUA published a news release, "Why Our Water Tanks Remain Low and How You Can Help," containing the system's own metering data for the previous night. It is the most direct published evidence of where the water goes. In the utility's own figures:
Two things follow from the utility's own data. First, sustained draws of that size, hour after hour through the night, are the signature of programmed irrigation timers running on schedule, not people out with hoses. If your controller has an overnight program, it is part of this. Second, the release demonstrates that the system's metering can identify irrigation-scale use hour by hour. That raises a fair question about enforcement, because the PUA's adopted Drought Contingency Plan prescribes an exact penalty ladder for violations: a written notice, then a $500 surcharge, then $1,000, then disconnection. Whether that ladder is being used, and how often, is the subject of a pending public records request.
On July 28, 2026, in response to a resident's Public Information Act request, the utility released its daily production records for January through June 2026: raw water in and finished water out, in million gallons, for all 181 days (the released document, PDF). It is the first multi-month daily production record the PUA has made public, and it puts three numbers side by side for the first time.
Then came August. On the morning the corridor woke without pressure, the PUA's own data release put plant production at about 14.0 million gallons while customers used about 14.8. The plant has delivered 18.9 in a day before, by the PUA's own account to TCEQ, and 16.1 as recently as August 2025. The crisis-day figure is not the plant's ceiling. It is 2 to 5 million gallons below what the utility has told the state the plant can do.
Why this matters. The gap between 14 and 17 to 18 is 3 to 4 million gallons a day. The entire shortfall on August 27, the amount by which the tanks fell behind demand, was about three quarters of a million gallons. If the plant had produced what the utility says it can produce, and what it told TCEQ it produced in 2022, the tanks would have gained more than two million gallons that day even with every irrigation violation left running. The utility has published hour-by-hour data supporting the demand side of its explanation. Nothing published explains the supply side: why output on the worst day ran so far below the plant's own record.
One part of the answer is in the 2026 TCEQ report. Of the plant's three treatment trains (8, 2 and 10 million gallons a day), the 2 MGD train "is used exclusively for recycled backwash water treatment." Only the other two treat river water, which is 18 MGD, not 20. That squares with the PUA's "17 to 18" statement. It does not explain 14.
The released records stop on June 30. Daily production for July and August 2026, the months that would answer the question, has not been published. This page will be updated if it is.
The drought plan's math is written against the 20 MGD rating: Stage 1 begins when demand holds at 16 million gallons for three days. If the plant's real river-water capacity is 18, and its output in a crisis is 14, the triggers fire later than the plant's limits warrant.
In September 2026 a resident obtained TCEQ's inspection and complaint records for this system under the Texas Public Information Act, going back to 1999. The relevant reports are linked below, with residents' sample-site addresses blacked out. Four things in them are worth every customer's attention.
TCEQ's list of public notices shows 32 boil water notices since May 2021, 21 of them in 2025 and 2026. Twenty-three are coded "low distribution pressure." TCEQ's own July 2023 inspection report already explained the pattern: "BWNs were issued for pressure loss as a result of power failures and other low-pressure events caused by high demand in the system during water restrictions" (2023 report, PDF, page 3). The regulator wrote that three years before August 2026.
TCEQ's list may also be short. A Belvedere customer received a boil water advisory from the PUA on August 13, 2026, citing high demand draining the tanks (PDF). It is not on TCEQ's list and never appeared on the PUA's news page. Counting it, 2026 had eight boil water notices through August 26, not seven. Whether the PUA reported the August 13 notice to TCEQ, and when it was lifted, are open questions.
The PUA's public explanation, that the expansion is delayed by "permitting and design complications," describes the last chapter of a fifteen-year story.
Twenty-two residents filed a joint complaint with TCEQ about the August outage and boil notices (Incident 464795, received August 31, 2026). TCEQ closed it the next day: "This complaint is being addressed during another investigation and can be referenced in Investigation No. 2159660" (complaint record, PDF). Investigation 2159660 is TCEQ's routine inspection of the plant on June 16, 2026, prompted by a single low-pressure complaint from the Parten Ranch area in early June (that complaint, PDF). The 82-page report, approved on August 31, does not mention August 21 to 28 anywhere. Its capacity finding is a formula check under state rule 290.45 that the system "as a whole and each pressure plane was compliant." It does not ask why the Hamilton Pool Road corridor lost pressure.
Anyone who filed a TCEQ complaint about August should ask TCEQ, in writing, which investigation number covers the August 21 to 28 events, since 2159660's field work was done in June.
TCEQ asked the PUA for connection counts by pressure plane. On June 24, 2026 the PUA listed 4,213 connections in the 1340 plane, the County Line pump station system on Highway 290. TCEQ then asked about the Hays County WCID 1 and 2 wholesale connections served under direct pressure (2,092). In a memo dated August 27, 2026, the PUA revised the 1340 count to 2,679, stating the earlier "4,213 figure appears to include WTCPUA connections assigned to other pressure planes." TCEQ used 2,679 + 2,092 = 4,771 connections, which at 2.0 gallons per minute per connection requires 9,542 gpm against an 11,100 gpm pump station: 86 percent, a pass that triggers a planning report. With the June figure, the requirement would have been 12,610 gpm, more than the pump station has. That comparison is ours, not TCEQ's; the memo may be right that the June figure double-counted. But the revision arrived the day after the system lost pressure, and the five per-plane counts in the final worksheets add to 16,583 against a system total of 17,876 (2026 report, PDF, Attachment B item 6.1 and Attachment E).
For Hamilton Pool Road customers there is a second question. TCEQ's worksheets fold the Hamilton Pool pump station (three 750 gpm pumps, one 0.4 million gallon elevated tank) into the Bee Cave pressure plane, and the Provence area does not appear in any worksheet by name. State rule 290.45(a)(1) requires separate evaluation of pressure planes that are "hydraulically separated from, or incapable of being served by, other pump stations or pressure planes." The August 24 boil notice went to Hamilton Pool Road customers alone, and the corridor stayed under notice after the rest of the system cleared. Whether the corridor has ever been evaluated as its own unit is a question TCEQ has not answered on the record.
Through the same August emergency, residents along Hamilton Pool Road repeatedly documented commercial water-hauling trucks filling from fire hydrants inside the service area, including on the morning of August 27, hours after homes in the corridor lost pressure.
What the utility's adopted plan says. The PUA's Drought Contingency Plan addresses hydrants directly. In Stage 3, "use of water from fire hydrants shall be limited to firefighting and activities necessary to maintain public health, safety and welfare," with construction use allowed only under an approved variance and meter. In Stage 4 emergencies, hydrant use is limited to firefighting only, and no new meters of any kind may be approved. Stage 3 has been in effect since August 25.
What the utility has said so far, per communications relayed to customers through a homeowners association in August 2026: a commercial water hauler purchased a meter directly from WTCPUA; the utility estimates that hauler's usage as approximately equivalent to one residential household; the utility has temporarily placed a halt on that meter; and bulk water meters are granted for four months at a time, after which vendors must reapply.
What remains unanswered, and is now formally pending: how much water has been withdrawn from hydrants by haulers, by month; who purchases it and where it goes; what revenue the sales generate; and what operational thresholds, if any, suspend bulk sales when tanks are low, pressure drops, or a boil notice is active. A customer's formal complaint posing these questions was acknowledged in writing by the General Manager on August 27, 2026 as a Public Information Act request, with the requested records due within ten business days. This page will be updated when the records arrive.
The federal Safe Drinking Water Act compliance database lists ten violations for this system since 2005, all since returned to compliance. Three are health-based. Several bear directly on this summer's events:
Sources: EPA's SDWIS/ECHO compliance database and the utility's own Consumer Confidence Reports, linked below. The full CCR archive back to 2014 is posted on the PUA's water quality page.
GENERAL MANAGER, MARCH 26, 2026 BOARD MINUTES
PUA PUBLIC STATEMENT, JULY 10, 2025
TCEQ INSPECTION REPORT, INVESTIGATION 1918314, JULY 2023
WTCPUA STAGE 3 ALERT, EFFECTIVE AUGUST 25, 2026
Also worth knowing, per the Bee Cave Mayor's August 2026 public post: the PUA's wholesale sale of water to Rough Hollow ends this winter, when Rough Hollow returns to Lakeway MUD supply, freeing capacity for the rest of the system. The Mayor also confirmed the two Bee Cave appointees to the PUA board deliver a quarterly operations report to Bee Cave City Council, where residents can ask questions during citizen comments.
The PUA is a separate government agency, not part of any city. Its five board seats are appointed by the City of Bee Cave (2), Hays County (2), and Lake Pointe MUD (1). If you live in unincorporated Travis County outside Lake Pointe MUD, you don't vote for any of the bodies that appoint this board. The board meets every other month, on the third Thursday, at Bee Cave City Hall, with time reserved for public comment at every regular meeting.
ROSTER PER WTCPUA.ORG; GM CONTACT SHARED PUBLICLY BY THE BEE CAVE MAYOR, AUGUST 2026
Public comment is item III, right after the call to order: fill out the Public Comment Form at the entrance, three minutes per speaker. New business includes item VI.A, "Hamilton Pool Road Water Service Complaints"; award of the construction manager at risk contract for the Uplands plant expansion (VI.L) and $3.7 million in engineering for a "CMAR 15 MGD Expansion" (VI.M.2); updates to the Water Conservation Plan and Drought Contingency Plan (VI.J); the LCRA firm water application (VI.I); engaging additional engineering firms to keep priority projects on schedule (VI.G); $11.4 million for the Highway 290 parallel transmission main (VI.P.2); and item VI.O, new litigation filed against the PUA by SJWTX, Inc., the company that owns the Deer Creek water system on Hamilton Pool Road (the subject of the suit is not public yet). Several items may go into executive session. Full agenda (PDF).
Three questions worth three minutes. (1) The PUA reported to TCEQ a maximum day of 18.9 million gallons in 2022 and 16.1 in 2025. What limited the plant to 14.0 on August 26, 2026? (2) Has the Hamilton Pool Road corridor ever been evaluated as its own pressure plane under state rule 290.45, and what are its pumping and storage numbers against its connection count? (3) TCEQ closed the 22-resident August complaint by reference to its June 16 inspection. Which investigation, if any, is looking at the August 21 to 28 events, and has the PUA asked TCEQ for one? And was the August 13 boil water advisory for Belvedere and Provence, which is not on TCEQ's list, reported to the state?
Regular council meetings start at 6:00 PM on the second and fourth Tuesdays. The city's two PUA appointees present an operations update and answer council questions. Residents get up to 3 minutes each in citizen comments (arrive a few minutes early to sign up). The Mayor has publicly invited customers to use this format. Historically, nobody shows up. Show up.
Replace the bracketed placeholders with your own details. Editing a sentence or two in your own voice makes every letter count more, since offices discount identical form letters.
Dear Congressman [McCaul / Roy], I'm a constituent in [neighborhood], in unincorporated western Travis County, served by the West Travis County Public Utility Agency (public water system TX2270235, roughly 20,000 connections). On August 26, 2026 our entire system received a boil water notice due to low water pressure, five days after an emergency order to discontinue all irrigation because storage tanks were critically low. This was the fifth boil water event on this system since 2023, including a November 2025 notice caused by treatment plant turbidity exceedances. Families here are boiling drinking water in one of the fastest growing corridors in Texas while the lake supplying us is full. The utility's own board record documents the cause: the treatment plant is capped at 20 million gallons a day and cannot meet peak summer demand, the expansion was delayed by permitting and design complications and is now targeted for December 2027, and in March 2026 the General Manager stated on the record that the Agency "does not have the capacity to serve anyone else until additional water supplies are identified." The Agency has frozen new commercial service applications and is applying for a Texas Water Development Board water supply and infrastructure grant. I'm not asking your office to intervene in a local utility's operations. I'm asking for three things within the federal lane: 1. A constituent inquiry to TCEQ, which holds Safe Drinking Water Act primacy, regarding the pattern of pressure loss and boil water events on PWS TX2270235 and what oversight steps the Commission is taking. 2. Your office's support, where appropriate, for the Agency's pending and future applications for state and federal water infrastructure funding (TWDB programs, SRF, WIFIA), since accelerating the treatment plant expansion is the only durable fix. 3. Awareness in your district office that this is an active constituent issue across the Hamilton Pool Road and Highway 71 corridor. The facts above come from the utility's posted board packets, minutes, and public notices, and I'm glad to provide the documents. Thank you for your service and your attention to this. Respectfully, [Your name] [Your street address and neighborhood] [City], TX [ZIP] [Phone] | [Email]
Dear Commissioner, I'm a resident of [neighborhood], in unincorporated Travis County within Precinct 3, and a retail customer of the West Travis County Public Utility Agency. On August 26, 2026 the PUA issued a systemwide boil water notice due to low water pressure, five days after an emergency order to discontinue all irrigation because storage tanks were critically low. This was the fifth boil water event since 2023. The cause is documented in the PUA's own board record. The treatment plant is capped at 20 million gallons a day and cannot meet peak summer demand. The planned expansion has slipped and is now targeted for December 2027. In March 2026 the General Manager stated the PUA "does not have the capacity to serve anyone else until additional water supplies are identified," and the Agency froze new commercial service applications. In May, the Agency's engineers acknowledged to the board that delivery dates for four capital projects would not be met. The structural problem: the PUA board's five seats are appointed by Bee Cave, Hays County, and Lake Pointe MUD. Unincorporated Travis County customers outside Lake Pointe MUD have no appointing body and no elected official with any formal role in the Agency's governance, despite being among the customers most affected. I'd respectfully ask your office to consider two things: 1. A letter from your office to the WTCPUA board requesting a public update on the expansion schedule, interim reliability measures for the remainder of this summer and for 2027, and distribution to all customers of the written response the Reunion Ranch WCID board requested in May regarding the causes of these incidents. 2. Opening a conversation with the PUA's sponsoring entities about representation for unincorporated Travis County customers. I recognize the county holds no statutory authority over the Agency. I'm asking that the thousands of Precinct 3 households served by this utility have an advocate with standing while the fixes are, by the Agency's own admission, more than a year away. Respectfully, [Your name] [Your street address and neighborhood] [City], TX [ZIP] [Phone] | [Email]
Dear Ms. Riechers and Members of the Board, I'm a retail customer in [neighborhood]. I've read the board packets, so I understand the plant is at its 20 MGD capacity limit, the expansion is targeted for December 2027, and interim supply measures are being pursued. I appreciate that the record is candid. I'm writing with four specific requests: 1. Please include one paragraph of context in each outage and restriction notice, explaining that these events stem from a known capacity constraint with a funded expansion underway. The notices currently arrive with no explanation, and that gap drives most of the public frustration. 2. Please publish the written response to the reliability questions the Reunion Ranch WCID board requested in May (causes, corrective actions, interim measures, and timeline) so all customers can read it, not only the district that asked. 3. The August 27 news release with overnight irrigation data was exactly the kind of transparency customers need. Please make that data snapshot a routine daily publication during restrictions, and publish it by pressure plane or area where possible. Data will change behavior faster than fines, and customers complying with restrictions deserve to know their conservation matters. 4. Please post a current service area map. The map on the website is dated January 2015. Thank you, and thank you to the staff working through these events in the field. Respectfully, [Your name] [Your neighborhood] [Account address or account number, optional]
Seen something neighbors should know about? Tanker trucks filling from hydrants, a main break, pressure readings, watering violations, a notice that doesn't add up. Share it here, with photos if you have them. Everything submitted is reviewed before anything is used, and personal information is always redacted before anything you share is published. Name and contact are optional; leaving a way to reach you helps if we need to confirm a detail.