At the July 16^th general meeting, the following people signed up to be on the committee:

Chuck Warick, Sarah Williams, Dave Decker, Michelle Ellis, Auburn Gallagher, Lisa Blanda and Linda Hambrick.

Lisa Blanda asked to drop out because after rethinking her situation, she has too many commitments to take on another. Michelle Ellis can’t meet on Saturdays because she is a realtor and that is one of her busy days.

Chuck and his family had already planned a vacation starting this weekend and Sarah and her family had already planned a visit from friends.

So, Linda, Dave and Auburne met and spent an hour discussing what should be done to begin to cope with these problems.

Auburne is going to order two years of her billing statements to try to track Aqua’s rate increases and her usage. She will also call her contacts at Aqua and TCEQ and ask for information. She will try to get Aqua to designate a staff member to come out to our next general meeting.

Dave is going to try to find out what type of attorney we need to contact at a later date if it is decided that we need to have one. He had designed two petitions, one to Aqua and one to TCEQ, and he will have them printed up in preparation for a signature drive when our data gathering is finished. He will also contact Aqua’s local employee and work with him to get his subdivision to stop watering and find out about the well plans if Larry knows them. He will also contact a political person he knows well and ask her what she recommends that we do.

Linda will contact her friend who does signs and get him to do some that have our various contact information, such as the web site, nextdoor and the face book pages plus the statement that we are collecting signatures on petitions to be sent to Aqua and TCEQ. She will call or go to the City of Liberty Hill and get copies of relevant litigation files between the city and Aqua so we can see what they went through on their way to losing the suit.

Meanwhile, we should all be sending or bringing to Linda any correspondence with Aqua or TCEQ. Linda will serve as secretary but does not want to take the lead. We intend to accumulate as much data as possible and organize it in a binder so copies can be made, and we can scan what is decided that needs to be shared.

We welcome any advice, suggestions, and information. We could also use two other committee members to take the place of those who can’t do it.

1. Call to Order. The meeting was called to order by Lannie Reed.

2. Discussion concerning the water issues in the Aqua Texas service area and beyond that consume water from the same water table.

Several people had signed up to speak. Dave Decker, president of The Bluffs Homeowners Association spoke first. He stated that he isn’t here representing the homeowner’s association since they haven’t met yet. He introduced Mario Mendoza who is also from The Bluffs. He stated that his intention is to work with the neighbors and not to be adversarial. Lanny had asked him to get some information from James Giddens, the builder of the homes in the subdivision. Giddens told Dave that The Bluffs was plated with 31 lots back in 1985/86 and was recorded at Travis County. The original subdivider of the 31 lots had an agreement with Southwestern Water Corporation and they paid for 31 taps. Nothing was built on the lots and Giddens bought the subdivision in 2018. Aqua bought the water corporation in the meantime. In 2019 Giddens had to pay Aqua for 31 connections and he deeded Aqua a one-acre lot on which to drill a well. They were supposed to drill two more wells in Sandy Creek, but he didn’t know the locations that were outside The Bluffs. At the time of contract signature with Aqua, Giddens got confirmation that a well had been drilled on Lot 14 of The Bluffs and it was providing adequate water.

Linda Hambrick asked Dave if Giddens or any of the home buyers were informed about the problems that Aqua was having providing water to its customers? Dave said that he thought Giddens was aware of the problems since he knew about the need for more wells but as a homeowner, Dave was not aware of any water problems when he bought his home. Linda suggested that perhaps that was a disclosure omission.

Lindsay Haisley gave a brief history of the area and the issues the water system from the beginning. Gene Bilberry was the original developer who never did provide decent water and the next owner, Bill Long didn’t do any better. Long sold the system to Aqua who are playing catchup to fix the substandard system. The water mains and pipes were installed in ditches with no bedding, so the system has always leaked. Wells are failing, being redrilled and new wells are being drilled.

Dave said that the water mains going into The Bluffs are faulty. He also stated that the home buyers had no idea that this area was in water restrictions for years. When the subdivision got a letter from Aqua about stage four restrictions, that was the first they were aware of the issues. Giddens installed yard lines from the Aqua lines. They are also getting the brown water at times.

Mike Pettit and Chuck Warick discussed the present status of the Aqua system and the progress of the construction project. There was a general discussion of other new subdivision activities and where their water will come from. Suggestions were made for solutions such as asking Leander to run a line out here, which is probably not a possibility. Carla Rowland from Cherry Hollow was worried that Aqua is taking water from their storage tanks. There was discussion about what areas Aqua serves.

Lannie Reed suggested action to be taken so that our voices can be combined and augmented by publicity. There as discussion about the path to take. TCEQ is one of the agencies that could help us. Mark Sloat talked about what Aqua has done and is now doing. He also mentioned illegal subdivisions. Linda Hambrick is trying to get Commissioner Ann Howard out to a meeting. Cherlyn Gwenwinkle asked if Dave can get his HOA to have his folks conserve water. He will look at the HOA rules. Aqua is imposing restrictions and will put a governor on the inflow if they don’t conserve. Lannie explained about water hydrology according to the information provided to her by the well guys. There was discussion about surface water as opposed to well water and leakage in systems.

Lannie suggested that we need to know what Aqua intends to add to the system.

A committee will be formed to figure out the steps to be taken to reach out to the proper entities to help us with our water issues. Suggestions were to reach out to Leander also to enforce their subdivision regulations and to go to the TCEQ. Auburne Gallagher spoke about her dealings with TCEQ. Lannie stressed that us getting together is the key. The committee needs to recommend solutions. Rainwater collection systems were suggested as an interim solution. Everyone should send any information they already have to the committee for them to organize. Linda can scan information for everyone’s use. Sandycreekcommunity.org is a web site that Lindsay Haisley administers. We need signs to advertise the web site.

Mark Sloat said that reporting a leak to Aqua is a problem, so Larry’s phone number was given out. There was a discussion about where the pipes are located that the fire department can use to fill up the water truck.

Cynthia Sutton had signed up to speak and she told the group about her severe water problems. She was asked to forward on to the committee her complaints so that they can be included in the collection of documentation. Linda gave her address for the committee meeting next Saturday and it was decided that it starts at 11 a.m. The next general meeting will be held at Nameless School as soon as the committee has enough time to pull together information, contact information and recommendations.

Lindsay Haisley announced a meeting in Belton concerning well water education and he recommended a Lindsay Walter’s essay on the Colorado River and droughts. He referred us to the web site.

Jennifer, a speaker from Cherry Hollow talked about the problems that they are experiencing lately in that subdivision. Manuel told us that there is a contact name on the last mailing from Aqua.

Auburne Gallagher told about her dealings with Giddens moving folks in before their well was operative. She was told that Giddens was supposed to pay Aqua to drill all three wells. Cynthia gave Auburne a number of a contact at TCEQ.

Linda summarized the situation. This is a problem that is manifesting all over the water poor areas of the southwest. It is bigger than Aqua. We have to stick together and try to find contacts with those entities that can and will try to help us. Lanny agreed and said that we’ve taken our first step with this meeting and that we will continue to fight and put pressure on Aqua.

Jacob Massengill suggested eradicating the Cedar trees which use up a lot of water.

Item 3. Discussion concerning illegal subdivisions, their effects on the adjoining properties in terms of sewage, drainage and pressure on limited water resources.

Chad Moss reviewed the history of the illegal subdivision on Chaparral and Auburne joined in the discussion. There has been no response to our situation so far. This should be one of the issues that this group addresses in numbers and with publicity. The problem is that Travis County is not enforcing their laws.

Item 4. Discussion concerning the various entities with regulatory power over the development of property in this area and their lack of enforcement. This was covered in the discussions above.

Item 5. Discussion concerning the Round Mountain Community Center (Scholl) and hear information about the plans being made to establish a 501c3 non-profit to legalize and perpetuate the management of the old building for the use of the community.

Linda and Lindsay gave a brief history of the Round Mountain School. She reported that there is a small group of concerned people who are trying to get a legal nonprofit organized and approved in order to make sure that the building does not get sold, torn down or taken out of the community. The group doesn’t want to interfere with the Browers or the church that Dottie is renting the school to, but only to provide a legal basis for it to continue to be a community center. They asked the group if they agreed with that goal and asked for support. The group unanimously expressed support for the project. There was a consensus that the community should be able to use the school for meetings and events.

Item 6. Any other topics brought up by attendees if time permits.

Chad Moss wanted to talk about a directory for local businesses. Lindsay said that the web site can have this. Lindsay talked about the web site and how to communicate on it.

There was a question about enforcement of HOA’s. Deed restrictions have to be enforced by civil suit.

There was a discussion about who bought Calkin’s store. Nobody knew.

There was another discussion about water use by Cedar trees.

Linda suggested that we adjourn and spend the rest of our time visiting.

Item 7. Schedule a follow up meeting in the near future. The committee will meet on Saturday, July 23^rd at 11 a.m. at 24604 Long Hollow Trail. The next general meeting will be announced on Nextdoor and on the website when the committee has had time to do some work and make a recommendation. Any information held concerning these issues should be forwarded to Linda, Lannie or the committee members who are Chuck Warick, Sarah Williams, Dave Decker, Auburne Gallagher, Lisa Blanda and Linda Hambrick.

Item 8. Adjournment

The meeting was adjourned at 1:42 p.m.

Thanks to Linda Hambrick for writing up the minutes of our community meeting, which follow:

Minutes of the meeting of the Neighbors of Sandy Creek held on June 12^th at the Round Mountain Baptist Church.

There were approximately 40 participants for this meeting.

1. Illegal Subdivisions

Chad Moss led the meeting by first going over the short agenda.Illegal subdivisions and legal subdivisions that add to the water issues.

 

2. Aqua

Aqua and its role in the new illegal development and resubdivisions of lots and extensions of inadequate system.

These two items were discussed together.

 

Deed restrictions were discussed as a possible avenue of action against these developments. We need to get copies of all plats of the areas under pressure of new development. It is possible that there are different restrictions according to the subdivision and the phase of the subdivision plat. It would be helpful to have copies of these plats and the deed restrictions of each one for our information. Linda Hambrick pointed out that the enforcement method for deed restrictions is only through civil litigation and that requires an attorney which costs money, and that a more expedient method would be to put pressure on the county and TCEQ before resorting to this tool.

 

There was discussion about how Aqua is continuing to try to install new taps in the Chaparral development even though the county has a stop-work order on it and is supposedly pursuing the owner in court. The KVUE report was discussed and that it mentioned the law firm that is representing the people who bought lots from the developer. The relationships of the developer, Aqua, Travis County and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality were discussed in terms of our need to find the best way to have positive input as a group of property owners who are being impacted by the poor water system and the illegal development.

 

We need to develop a data base of contact names, phone numbers, addresses (both email and postal) of all entities and each contact them as often as possible. We need to do a petition to be sent to the Travis County Commissioners Court with copies to Aqua Texas and TCEQ. Linda will write the petition and get it out so that people can get signatures and Chad will work on contacts at TCEQ. Anyone who has this information should share it with all and especially Linda so that she can make up the data base. Mark Sloat, who works for the county, is a good resource for these contacts at the county. He suggested also contacting the county through their health department and their environmental quality department. These will be on the data base.

 

The idea of finding an attorney was discussed. Chad will try to contact the group that is representing the buyers of the Chaparral development to see if we might piggyback on their behalf. Other names were mentioned: Tom Buckle of Jonestown, and Bill Alshire, retired County Judge who was quoted in the KVUE news piece.

 

We will continue to correspond on Neighborhood and the new Face Book page set up by Chad, Leander Valley Community, and the page set up by Lindsay Haisley, sandycreekcommunity.org.

Linda will construct a list from the sign-up sheets from the meeting. (If you object to your info being included let Linda know to leave yours off of the public list.)

 

3. Community Pride

There was a discussion on ideas to help clean up the community. About half of those in attendance raised their hands when asked by Chad to be volunteers on a future clean up effort of the rights of way. When this comes up, all will be notified and be able to participate.

 

Recycling was also discussed and Clawson will be contacted to see if they are willing to help us with this effort.

 

4.  History of and future utilization and care of existing community center.

There was a lively discussion about the community center. Several participants had been involved through the years as trustees and it was decided that the Snodgrass’s, who conduct the elections that are held there, will act as emissaries to the Browers, who now control the center, to try to establish a plan to let the citizens become more active in helping to maintain and utilize the facility.

 

5.  Future meetings and actions to be taken resulting from this initial meeting.

After the community center issue has been resolved, we will meet next at that building. The long-range plan will be to have at least quarterly meetings there, and be able to make more use of the building.

When the petition has been written and distributed, signatures will be gathered and the petition will be sent to the proper entities.

 

A database of contacts (both neighbors and regulatory entities) will be developed and distributed.

 

We will watch the agenda of the Commissioners Court and attend in large numbers if the Chaparral development makes it to the agenda. We will also attend the City Council meeting on the 21^st to comment on the Concept Plan for the other resubdivision.

 

One of the attendees will check on Clawson’s recycling possibility.

 

Thanks for all who came out and also for the interest of those who could not attend.

 

Linda Hambrick

24604 Long Hollow Trail