Brushy Creek Cleanup Ends After Waste Spill

ROUND ROCK, TX — The cleanup at Brushy Creek is complete after the past weekend's accidental dumping of some 100,000 gallons of untreated waste due to a treatment plant malfunction, a city official told Patch.

Sara Bustilloz, a city spokeswoman, told Patch the city had been working with state officials to clean up the waterway. The cost of the cleanup efforts weren't immediately available.

City officials said in a Tuesday press advisory the power outage occurred at 8:10 p.m. on Sunday, June 23, at the Brushy Creek Regional Wastewater Treatment Plant in far east Round Rock. The outage caused a failure at an influent lift station, which in turn prompted the spill The leak was contained by 9:40 p.m., but not before thousands of fish reportedly were killed as a result.

Related story: Power Outage Causes Spill At Round Rock Treatment Plant

The spill occurred just over eight months since the City of Round Rock took over operations of the plant on Oct. 1, 2018, according to information provided by the city spokeswoman. The breakdown also occurred as the city was poised to revamp it, according to the city spokeswoman.

"In addition, some of this infrastructure will be replaced and upgraded during the next wastewater treatment plant expansion scheduled to start next year," she wrote. "We have been proactively repairing and replacing critical infrastructure at the treatment plant since the City of Round Rock took over operations on October 1, 2018. There is scheduled maintenance of these assets that is continuously performed."

The treatment plant is jointly owned by Round Rock, Cedar Park and Austin, the spokeswoman said. "Leander is currently leasing treatment capacity from Round Rock, but they will become an owner since they will be buying capacity during the upcoming expansion project," she added.

The city's utilities director, Michael Thane, discussed the leak and future plans for the plant during the Round Rock City Council meeting on Thursday. His presentation to council can be viewed Friday afternoon when video of the council meeting is uploaded here: https://roundrock.legistar.com/Calendar.aspx.