The West Travis County
water reliability crisis

Five documented facts

• The plant produced far less in the crisis than it has before. The Uplands plant is rated 20 million gallons/day (PUA public statement, July 2025). On Aug 27, 2026 the PUA stated it can produce 17 to 18 on "a very high-production day." The PUA has reported to TCEQ a maximum day of 18.885 million gallons (Aug 5, 2022) and 16.127 (Aug 1, 2025). On the Aug 27, 2026 crisis day it reported producing 14.0. Storage tanks drained overnight instead of refilling. Nothing published explains the supply-side gap.
• The utility has said so on the record. March 26, 2026 board minutes: the PUA "does not have the capacity to serve anyone else until additional water supplies are identified." New commercial service applications are frozen.
• The fix is years out, slipping, and long foreseen. TCEQ inspection reports show the capacity warning dates to 2012 (plant at 93.1% of rating), that TCEQ recorded the PUA past the 85% planning threshold in 2015, and that the PUA told TCEQ in 2017 and 2020 it would expand to "at least 30 MGD." The membrane plant it pursued instead was denied by TCEQ on April 21, 2025 and did not fit Bee Cave's 40-foot height limit (76.5-foot building). The 33 MGD conventional design adopted July 2025 is targeted for December 2027. In May 2026 the PUA's engineers told the board that delivery dates for four Highway 290 system capital projects would not be met.
• August 2026 was the breaking point. Aug 13: boil water advisory for Belvedere and Provence, tanks draining under high demand (customer copy; not on the PUA's news page or TCEQ's notice list). Aug 21: emergency order to discontinue all irrigation, tanks critically low. Aug 24: boil notice, Hamilton Pool Rd. Aug 25: Stage 3 restrictions (declared because Stage 2's 20% reduction target "is not achieved," the utility's own trigger language). Aug 26: systemwide boil notice. Aug 27: homes across the corridor woke to single-digit PSI or no water; three public schools went under boil protocols and one closed restrooms. TCEQ's own notice list shows 32 boil water notices since May 2021: 1, 2, 4, 4, 14 and 7 per year through Aug 26, 2026, 23 of them for low distribution pressure (8 in 2026 counting the Aug 13 notice). On Sept 1, 2026 TCEQ closed a 22-complainant complaint about the August outage by reference to a routine inspection conducted June 16, ten weeks earlier, whose report does not mention August.
• Compliance history is not clean. The federal SDWA database lists ten violations since 2005, three health-based, including turbidity treatment-technique violations in October 2018 and November 2025, and a Public Notification Rule violation opened July 2025, not resolved until March 2026.

The production record

On July 28, 2026, in response to a resident's Public Information Act request, the utility released daily plant production records for January through June 2026 (the released document, PDF). Set against the utility's own public statements, the records frame the central unanswered question:

• 20 MGD is the plant's design rating (PUA statement, July 2025), and the number the drought plan's demand triggers are written against.
• 17 to 18 MGD is what the PUA said on Aug 27, 2026 the plant "can produce" on "a very high-production day."
• 18.885 and 16.127 MGD are the maximum days the PUA reported to TCEQ for 2022 and 2025 (TCEQ Investigations 1918314 and 2159660, PDFs).
• 14.03 MGD (March 27) is the highest single day in the released Jan to Jun 2026 records, which contain no peak-summer day. On the Aug 27 crisis day, the PUA reported the plant produced 14.0 while customers used 14.8.

The gap between 14 and 17 to 18 is 3 to 4 million gallons a day; the gap to the plant's own 2022 record is nearly 5. The entire shortfall on the crisis day was about 0.75 million gallons. If the plant had produced what the utility says it can produce, the tanks would have gained water that day even with every irrigation violation left running. The utility has published hour-by-hour data supporting the demand side of its explanation (irrigation). No data has been published explaining why plant output ran so far below stated capability and past performance through the emergency. The released daily records stop June 30; daily production for July and August 2026 has not been made public. TCEQ's 2026 report adds one structural fact: the plant's 2 MGD treatment train "is used exclusively for recycled backwash water treatment," so river-water treatment capacity is 18 MGD, not 20.

Open questions on the record

• Production capability. Rated capacity 20 MGD; river-water treatment capacity 18 MGD (TCEQ, 2026); stated capability 17 to 18 MGD (Aug 27, 2026); maximum days reported to TCEQ, 18.885 MGD (2022) and 16.127 MGD (2025); reported output on the Aug 27, 2026 crisis day, 14.0 MGD. No published data explains the difference. Daily production data for July and August 2026 would answer what limited the plant.
• TCEQ oversight of the August event. TCEQ closed the 22-complainant August 2026 complaint (Incident 464795) on Sept 1 by reference to Investigation 2159660, a routine inspection conducted June 16 whose report does not address August. The same report's pressure-plane capacity finding for the 1340 plane (86 percent of pump capacity) relies on a connection count the PUA revised downward in a memo dated Aug 27, 2026, the day after the outage. The Hamilton Pool Road corridor is not evaluated as a separate pressure plane anywhere in the report.
• Enforcement. The PUA's own Aug 27 data release shows ~10.4 million gallons of prohibited irrigation in 24 hours, metered hour-by-hour. Its adopted Drought Contingency Plan prescribes penalties: notice, $500, $1,000, disconnection. Whether that ladder has ever been used is the subject of pending public records requests.
• Bulk hydrant sales. Residents documented commercial water haulers filling from hydrants during the emergency, including the morning of the Aug 27 pressure loss. Under Stage 3 of the adopted plan, hydrant use is limited to firefighting and public health, with construction use only by variance and meter. Volumes, purchasers, revenue, and suspension thresholds are the subject of a Public Information Act request the General Manager acknowledged in writing on Aug 27, 2026.
• Interim reliability. What bridges the gap between now and the plant expansion (Dec 2027 target)? The board record references a wholesale arrangement ending this winter, a 0.5 MGD interim connection under study, and a TWDB grant application, but no consolidated interim reliability plan has been published for customers.
• Representation. The PUA's five board seats are appointed by Bee Cave (2), Hays County (2), and Lake Pointe MUD (1). Unincorporated Travis County customers outside Lake Pointe MUD, among the most affected, have no appointing body.

What would actually help

• An inquiry to TCEQ (SDWA primacy agency) asking (a) which investigation number covers the August 21 to 28, 2026 outage, since Investigation 2159660 was conducted June 16; (b) whether the Hamilton Pool Road corridor has been evaluated as a hydraulically separate unit under 30 TAC 290.45(a)(1); (c) the basis for the PUA's Aug 27, 2026 revision of the 1340 pressure plane connection count; and (d) the reasons for TCEQ's April 21, 2025 denial of the membrane plant.
• Support for water infrastructure funding. The PUA has a Texas Water Development Board grant application pending; accelerating the plant expansion is the only durable fix. TWDB programs, SRF, and WIFIA are the relevant vehicles.
• A public accounting. A letter from any elected office asking the PUA board to publish (a) the written reliability response requested by the Reunion Ranch WCID board in May 2026, (b) drought-plan enforcement statistics, and (c) its policy on bulk hydrant sales during shortage stages would put the key questions on the public record.
• A voice for unincorporated Travis County customers in the Agency's governance conversation.

Constituents in this service area are engaged, organized, and documenting everything. The full fact sheet carries the timeline, the utility's own statements, the compliance record, and links to every source document.