BexarMet Still Fighting with Residents Over Elevated Tank Site

No one seems to want the Bexar Metropolitan Water District's proposed 15-story water storage tank in their backyard, but the beleaguered water utility has to find a place for it somewhere soon.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has issued an order for an elevated water storage tank to service BexarMet's coverage area in northern Stone Oak, known collectively as pressure zone 1395.

The 2.5 million-gallon tank would help alleviate area water pressure problems and would serve as a backup water source if something goes wrong with the utility's Knights Cross facility.

BexarMet spokesman Mike Lopez said it's supposed to be built by the end of 2010, but board members must first decide where they're going to put it. The long struggle doesn't appear to be getting any easier if Monday's special board meeting was any indication.

“You are going to build this literally in people's backyards,” Timber Oaks North resident Dayle Manny told the board. “You have caused us misery for two-and-a-half months. It has been a nightmare.”

BexarMet board members and staff on Monday discussed three possible homes for the water tower: a 1.35-acre parcel of land off Flagstone Drive in Timber Oaks North between Timberwood Park and Stone Oak; a one-acre tract off Canyon Golf Road close to the Champions Ridge neighborhood and a parcel at the southwest corner of U.S. 281 and Overlook Parkway.

BexarMet project engineer Bobby Mengden said the cheapest option is Flagstone, which came as an unwelcome surprise to some Timber Oaks North residents who thought that option was off the table. The total project would cost $5.5 million on Flagstone, compared with $7.4 million on Canyon Golf and $9.5 million on Overlook.

The BexarMet board unanimously voted recently to suspend putting the water tower on Flagstone Drive. Timber Oaks North residents had been fearing declining property values and accused BexarMet of keeping them in the dark about considering building the tower in their neighborhood.

The key is Flagstone Drive's proximity to Blanco Road, Mengden said.

BexarMet has water transmission lines along Blanco almost all the way up to the West Oak Estates neighborhood with plans to extend those lines even further north.

The Overlook Parkway site would require about a mile-and-a-half of connection lines at a cost of $3.2 million. Also, the Overlook and Canyon Golf sites would need additional ground stations to pump the water up to where it needs to be, Mengden added.

Lopez stressed that the purpose of Monday's meeting was to discuss tower location options for property that BexarMet already owns. BexarMet bought the Flagstone site three months ago.

After a nearly two-and-a-half hour executive session, board members declined to take action on a two-acre piece of property at the end of Hardy Oak Road adjacent to Blanco.

BexarMet was going to rely on eminent domain to buy the property late last year after its owners refused to sell.

Lopez said that's still on the table.

Champions Ridge Homeowners Association President Joe Silman asked the BexarMet board whether an elevated tank is necessary, citing a 2007 agreement between BexarMet and Stone Oak residents that called for a ground-level water storage tank on the Canyon Golf site. Stone Oak homeowners have also complained the water tower's possible aesthetics.

BexarMet could go with a ground-level tank if TCEQ officials grant a variance, and the pressure zone that covers the southern half of Stone Oak has operated with ground-level tanks just fine, Silman said.

“There's no elevated storage in that pressure zone, and it has thousands of connections,” he said. “TCEQ at some point made an exception. All we're asking is that BexarMet make a concentrated effort to request a variance.”