Austin Water director explains what led up to latest boil water notice

Austin City Council questions Austin Water about recent water boil notice

That boil water notice was issued 10 days ago and we are learning more about what happened. An investigation into the incident is ongoing.

AUSTIN, Texas - It was an operations failure, not an infrastructure issue that led to the days-long boil water notice issued by Austin Water back on Feb. 5.

Shortly after the event, Austin Water Director Greg Meszaros announced his resignation, and recognized the buck stops with him.

"I am just profoundly sorry that we had this event," he said.

At a special-called meeting, council members took time to question Austin Water and identify what exactly happened.

"I called this special-called meeting in collaboration with Natasha-Harper Madison because of the instant feedback we got from the community."

The issues began on Friday, Feb. 4 inside of water basin six.

"It's very common for us to startup treatment basins this is nothing new. The startup of basin six cascaded out of control, spilled over into the filters and ultimately into the finished water," said Meszaros.

Austin City Council gets more details about recent boil water notice

After Austin's third boil water notice since 2018, the Austin City Council held a special meeting to understand what went wrong. FOX 7 Austin's Kelly Saberi has the details.

That is what called for the boil notice on Saturday. How did employees not handle this? That is all under review.

"How did communications break down, why weren't we able to diagnose what was happening with basin six? This was really about our operations of the plant, how we communicate, how we make decisions, how we respond to alarms, how we escalate," he said.

Meanwhile, while the city is doing its own investigation, council member Alison Alter is also pushing her resolution to conduct an independent audit of Austin Water.

"Our community must have full faith in the public water system and the leaders charged with overseeing it. Certainly no community should ever be in the position to doubt the safety and reliability of that system," said Spencer Cronk, city manager.

This is just the beginning of this conversation. On Thursday, the council will very likely vote whether or not to give Austin Water an external audit. Next week, the Austin Water Oversight Committee will meet to discuss this same issue.

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