Austin is eyeing a multi-million dollar experiment under the prairie east of town, as Austin Water asks City Council to sign off on roughly $15.7 million to test two big ideas: parking treated drinking water underground for a dry day and scrubbing salty groundwater until it is safe to drink. The work would take place on city-owned land in eastern Travis County and is pitched as a drought-hardy backup to the usual mix of reservoirs and conservation. Even if everything checks out, staff say any full build would still be more than a decade away.
Council To Consider $15.7M Contract Amendment
On May 28, the City Council is set to weigh an amendment to Austin Water’s engineering contract with HDR Engineering worth about $15.7 million, according to the Austin American-Statesman. The additional funding would pay for detailed field testing of aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) and brackish groundwater desalination to determine whether those strategies can be scaled up for Austin in a way that is technically sound, safe, and affordable.
What The Tests Would Do
In a memo to the mayor and council, Austin Water Director Shay Ralls Roalson compared ASR to a “water savings account,” where treated drinking water is injected underground in wetter periods and pumped back out during drought. According to a City memo, the proposed amendment would cover drilling test wells, collecting groundwater and core samples, running lab analyses, and setting up a Technical Advisory Group to steer the work. Staff stress that “no water will be injected during this approximately 3-year phase,” which is focused on gathering data rather than operating a live storage system.
Where This Came From
The effort grows out of the Water Forward 100-year plan, which the City Council updated in 2024 to ramp up conservation, water reuse, and new supply options. A report on the city’s century-long blueprint for water sustainability highlighted Austin’s push to diversify its water portfolio, and the Austin Chronicle has noted that the city is already spending on pipe repairs and reclaimed-water projects to stretch what it has.
Timeline And Costs
A City presentation outlines a phased schedule: staff expects to pick test-well sites this fall, drill exploratory wells and pull lab samples in spring 2027, and finish a Phase 1B field-testing report by spring 2028. After that, engineers would move into pilot design, with full-scale design and construction still years away if the data points in that direction. The packet shows the requested amendment totals $15,726,269 and would bring the HDR contract ceiling to about $21.7 million, and it notes that a full buildout of co-located ASR and desalination facilities could take more than a decade. The timeline and cost estimates are meant to give engineers space to evaluate water-quality compatibility, treatment needs, and permitting requirements before any pilot is put on the table.
Tradeoffs And Concerns
Desalination does not come free. Treating brackish water leaves behind a concentrated salty brine that has to be disposed of under state rules, and reverse-osmosis systems draw a lot of power. The city is trying to sort out how those environmental and cost tradeoffs stack up against the security of an extra supply line. Early coverage notes that council members and community stakeholders have raised questions about brine disposal options, energy use, and possible effects on local water rates, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Austin Water says the field tests are structured to put numbers to those concerns and identify realistic treatment and disposal pathways before any pilot project is proposed.
Next Steps And Outreach
The Water and Wastewater Commission recommended the contract amendment on May 20, and staff have mapped out community engagement from May through September 2026, including outreach to nearby neighborhoods and environmental groups and formation of a Technical Advisory Group. Commission briefings and City materials indicate that the next steps would include environmental desktop studies, early permitting work, and targeted conversations before final test-well locations are chosen. If the council signs off on the amendment, Austin Water plans to move into detailed site selection and permitting later this year.
For everyday Austinites, this marks a shift from long-range planning documents to drilling rigs and data points. The idea is to find out, rather than assume, whether underground storage and brackish desalination can realistically join the city’s local water toolkit. The testing phase will stretch across years and bring its share of tradeoffs, but it is also how Austin gets the hard evidence it will need to decide what comes next.
