Spicewood Beach’s Water System May Soon Belong to Canadian Company
Photo by Terrence Henry/StateImpact Texs
A 7,000 gallon truck brings in water about four times a day to Spicewood Beach
It’s been in the works for some time, and today the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) announced that it’s reached an agreement to sell the Spicewood Beach water system along with 19 other retail water and wastewater systems to the Canadian company Corix Infrastructure.
The Spicewood Beach water system’s wells began to fail at the end of January and since then the LCRA has been trucking water in to the community of some 1,100 people who live alongside Lake Travis (or what’s left of it, anyway). Spicewood Beach became known for being the first town to run dry during the Texas Drought.
Under an agreement between the LCRA and Corix, starting July 2nd until sometime in December 2013 when the sale is closed, Corix will operate the systems. In a release today, the LCRA notes that the company still “must apply to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for approval required for the sale, transfer or merger of a public utility as well as seek other regulatory approvals and consents for certain contract transfers.” The LCRA also says that it will “retain the rate setting authority over the systems” until the sale is finished.
You can read more about how the LCRA ended up owning the Spicewood Beach water system in the first place (and why some residents have questioned their management of it ever since) in this earlier story.
