Little bits of big news
Watering restrictions in effect HUTTO — Beginning today, customers who get their water service from the city of Hutto will be under voluntary Stage 1 Water Conservation guidelines and Manville Water Supply customers will be under mandatory Stage 1 rules. Jonah Water Special Utility District customers will continue under voluntary Stage 1 rules.
“This is the part about reminding people that water conservation is important. Understanding what the rules are. Starting to figure out what your watering days are. So, that way when we actually do have to go to the mandatory restrictions we don’t have a lot of people operating out of ignorance,” said City Manager James Earp.
Stage 1 rules vary slightly by provider.
Hutto
• Industrial, commercial and institutional customers water outdoors only on Mondays and Fridays • Even-numbered residential addresses water outdoors only on Sundays and Thursdays • Odd-numbered residential addresses water outdoors only on Saturdays and Tuesdays • Outdoor watering should only occur before 10 am or after 8 pm on designated days
Manville
• Industrial, commercial and institutional customers water outdoors only on Tuesdays and Fridays • Even-numbered residential addresses water outdoors only on Thursdays and Sundays • Odd-numbered residential addresses water outdoors only on Wednesdays and Saturdays • Outdoor watering should only occur before 10 am or after 7 pm on designated days
Jonah
• Even-numbered residential addresses water outdoors only on Thursdays and Sundays
• Odd-numbered residential addresses water outdoors only on Wednesdays and Saturdays • Outdoor watering should only occur before 10 am or after 8 pm on designated days These restrictions apply to irrigation system use and hoseend sprinklers. All three providers are currently allowing for hand-held watering at any time on any day. Non-essential water use, which includes washing sidewalks or buildings and flushing gutters, is not allowed. For more details check your water supplier’s website or the Huttotx. gov.
Traffic safety committee considered “What’s it going to take to fix the roads” is a question being shouted from Hutto’s rooftops for quite a while. It’s a talking point for every city council candidate.
In April, Councilmember Brian Thompson brought a suggestion to council that might be a starting point for resident conversations.
“I’ve noticed that a lot of other cities have a traffic safety committee, where this is something that not only helps to promote safety but also helps to look at data and analysis for traffic impact within a city but also provides an opportunity to collaborate with our partners,” Thompson said.
Thompson suggested the committee consist of two residents that have background in public works or civil engineering, a school district employee from the traffic routing department, a police sergeant, a leader from the emergency services district, a county employee who would know about roads that impact Hutto and a member of the city staff from the public works department.
While many other council members were amenable to the idea, they felt it needed further development.
“If we’re going to do this, we as a council need to really clarify exactly what the mission statement is for this group so they know what they are tasked with accomplishing. We need to take the time to get that right,” Councilmember Dan Thornton told Robinson.
Mayor Pro Temp Peter Gordon said these types of committees are used in other cities as a way for residents to lodge complaints and suggestions that would get vetted and perhaps passed on to the city for action.
Mayor Mike Snyder suggested the types of resident issues the committee would potentially address could be better handled through the city manager setting up a system in-house and not involving other agencies.
“Two citizens working with staff at the city, staff at the school district, staff at the ESD and at the county, that’s not a citizen group, that’s more like an inter-governmental agency. What I don’t want to do is provide more work for people,” Snyder said. “I’m just not sure we’re going to get all these agencies to meet, I think James (Earp) has a better shot at it.”
Council voted to direct city staff with work with Thompson and create a mission statement and clearer direction for what a committee would do so they could discuss it again in a future meeting.
City buckles down on water pollution
Owners and managers of detention ponds may soon be hearing from city staff about maintenance and upkeep of the ponds in order to prevent pollution of the storm water runoff system. And builders of new ponds will have a more enforceable set of agreements to sign before their projects can move forward.
Council approved a new ordinance in April to protect the MS4 municipal storm sewer system. That is the water runoff that goes into the storm drains and local creeks, not the sanitary sewer system that goes into the wastewater plants, according to Public Works Director Rick Coronado.
The new ordinance gives the city the legal authority to enforce construction-related storm water controls as well as post-construction storm water management. It also includes detention pond maintenance requirements. These requirements will help bring the city into compliance with Texas Commission on Environmental Quality regulations.
The city potentially has quite a few detention ponds that are non-conforming, many privately-owned or managed by Home Owners Associations.
“An ordinance will allow us to have something in writing that we could use as leverage or enforcement if they’re not dong what they should be doing. The only difference is it would require an inspection once every three years,” said Mindy McDonough, regulatory compliance manager.
“If there was ever a discharge from those units where it caused injury or a nuisance to our MS4 then we would have legal recourse in the enforcement section of our ordinance that we could use if we needed to to compel that landowner, whether it be the property manager or HOA, etc., to do something to get into compliance,” she said.
Council approved the first reading of the ordinance. It will become effective immediately upon approval of a second reading at City Council.
