A year after 3-day boil water order, Austin Water makes progress on 53 audit recommendations
A year after a three-day boil water order in Austin caused significant service disruptions for homeowners and businesses, an external review is leading to new hires and greater scrutiny of management at Austin Water, among more than 50 recommendations to improve the utility.
The City Council ordered an external audit of the utility to get a better look at the challenges and issues it was facing and to reduce the need for boil water orders, such as the one issued in February 2022.
The review, conducted by the University of Texas Center for Water and the Environment, identified improvements for Austin Water, which serves more than 1 million customers and has an annual operating budget of $654 million. The recommendations include improving structure at the base and management level and investing in the emergency management team and the public information team so that the utility can quickly communicate internally as well as to the public daily and during major weather events.
The utility has implemented most of the recommendations, from ramping up hiring to improving retention to implementing better communication strategies daily and during emergency situations, said Shay Ralls Roalson, who was named Austin Water director in December. She updated the council about progress on the recommendations laid out in a report released in January
“We appreciate the opportunity this review provided for us to rebuild community trust,” Roalson said. "Implementing the recommendations from this report will make Austin Water stronger and better positioned to face climate change and extreme weather events.”
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A series of human errors led the council to demand the review. A year ago, Austin Water officials said human error at the Ullrich Water Treatment Plant — the largest of the three city-owned water plants — allowed water into the system that tested beyond regulatory limits for turbidity, or cloudiness.
The February 2022 boil water notice created havoc across Austin, leaving eateries scrambling for bottled water and families doing the same. It was the third major boil water notice in as many years. That did not include a 2019 incident in which some residents found that their water stank due to the presence of dead zebra mussels. A fifth incident, in which fire foam entered the distribution system, was not associated with the operations of any of the plants, according to the review.
Addressing the issues in Austin Water audit
Roalson told the Statesman last week that the utility is moving forward with 92% of the 53 recommendations. Fourteen have been implemented, 23 are underway and 12 are planned. She said her team did not agree with four, which call for the utility to report directly to the city manager and reduce some of its control.
Council Member Alison Alter, who called for the external review of Austin Water, said the four underlying problems still need to be addressed.
Assistant City Manager Robert Goode, who oversees Austin Water, said the city manager’s office coordinated with the utility on the response to the recommendation that it report directly to the city manager, and the staff also disagreed with that recommendation.
"Different municipal utility organizational structures exist across the country with no system necessarily deemed more effective, or successful, than another," Goode said. "The city manager must constantly evaluate the appropriateness of the entire organizational structure and adjust, as necessary.”
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Hiring: Job One for Austin Water
Hiring and retention remain the highest priorities. An Austin Water spokesperson told the Statesman that the utility has 178 vacancies across the organization. Many resulted from retirements, transfers and terminations, the spokesperson said.
Austin Water officials said that Ullrich, the largest plant, has 12 vacant positions, Davis has 14 and Handcox has four.
“We have made significant strides in expediting our hiring processes,"utility officials said in a statement.
Since January, Austin Water has filled 98 positions.
Also critical: Roalson said the utility previously had one person overseeing all three water treatment plants. Now Ullrich has a manager and a second manager oversees Davis and Handcox.
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Stephanie Sue, operations manager for the plants, told the council that recruiting has been going well and that the candidate pool has been a lot better, and she attributed that to the increase in hourly pay rates. The average increase was nearly 8%.
Additionally, she said the utility began offering a 10% retention stipend, a move whose effectiveness will be evaluated next quarter. Roughly 85% of the utility's more than 1,300 employees are receiving the stipend.
“That's a very important thing that we can offer to the staff — the existing staff and the new ones that are considering jobs — to stay on board so that we can teach them quickly how to come up to speed and, you know, help us to consistently operate the plants,” Sue said.
More: Austin Water review highlights progress, improvements to make after 2022 boil water notice
What's next?
The goal is to have all recommendations implemented by the end of the year, through specific actions, process improvements or programmed capital projects, Roalson said.
The changes the utility has already made were put to the test during a freeze in February, when tens of thousands of people were without power, as were several water stations. About 40 homes lost water, Roalson said.
"The freeze was a significant test of our power resiliency strategy," she said. "It is a testament to the resilience and emergency preparedness work we've done over the last several years."
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin Water makes progress toward 53 external audit recommendations
