Nightmare on Elm Creek: The Pipeline Push
The City wants to pump treated wastewater effluent into Elm Creek — while its own treatment plant is still racking up state violations. On June 17 they'll hold a meeting to sell you on it. Here's what they're hoping you'll overlook.
The Facts
- Public meeting: 6:00 p.m., Wednesday, June 17, at the Arcadia Theater, 717 Water St., Kerrville.
- The City is hosting the meeting to share information and answer questions about the Elm Creek Pipeline project, which involves discharging treated effluent water into Elm Creek.
- The City's Wastewater Treatment Facility has a documented record of TCEQ wastewater violations (records available since 2024).
- Residents, businesses, and community members are invited to review project materials, ask questions, and provide feedback.
- The City's compliance history also includes TCEQ enforcement orders — formal state action that goes beyond a routine notice of violation.
- Sources: TCEQ Notice of Violation record → · TCEQ Enforcement Order record →
Where the Water Goes
This isn't effluent discharged into some far-off channel. Here's the path the water would actually take:
- Elm Creek — a dry creek bed that runs through a city park, where kids play and seniors walk in the mornings. The discharge would put treated effluent into that creek.
- From there it runs down into Nimitz Lake.
- At Nimitz Lake it is free to flow directly into the City of Kerrville Raw Water Intake — the source that supplies our drinking water.
- That water also gets pumped into the Lower Trinity aquifer formation, which is not confined to the west and north of Kerrville — meaning what goes in is not sealed off from the surrounding groundwater.
Our Take (opinion / commentary)
The City is asking residents to trust it with discharging effluent into Elm Creek while its wastewater facility carries TCEQ violations and enforcement orders — the very plant that would be responsible. That's the part the slideshow won't dwell on.
And the open question for June 17: will the public actually be allowed to speak? Or will the City cherry-pick which residents get to give feedback, deciding in advance whose voices count?
The bottom line: the City of Kerrville has not earned the public's trust for this project at this time. Fix the violations first. Show the community a clean record. Then talk about pumping anything into our creek.
Going to the meeting? Bring your questions in writing, ask for them to be entered into the record, and don't let "we'll follow up" be the end of it.