Fort Bend Southwest Star Newspaper

Local News, Classifieds, Real Estate for Sugar Land, Richmond, Stafford, Missouri City, Katy

During drought, two million gallons of H2O gushes into Meadows Place new lake

by

By Elsa Maxey

This marquee advises residents in Meadows Place that the huge excavation dug up in the Spring is being filled with water for a new lake at a city park featuring a jogging trail around the lake, a pavilion with BBQ pits, a bridge and other amenities that are about to be completed.

With water now going into a newly excavated lake site “about two million gallons at a rate of 200,000 gallons, it will probably take a while” before it’s filled, said Meadows Place Mayor Charles Jessup. Part of what is called a water reclamation project, Mayor Jessup said the water going into the lake is Type 1 effluent, “suitable for human contact,” he said, “but not for drinking and we’ll also be stocking the lake with fish at a future time.”

On Friday, the water began filling the massive crater that will be the lake once it’s filled. This project had its official groundbreaking on March 23, and residents have been advised that the water is still being poured in for the new lake that will take about 10 days to fill.

Where is all that water coming from during the state’s driest 7-month period on record where just the other day there was only a trickle of rain out here?

The water comes from the city’s freshwater and wastewater treatment operations, said Mayor Jessup and “as part of a cost saving water reclamation project, it will provide us with an inexpensive nearly inexhaustible water supply for both play and irrigation purposes.” He said that from a 500-750,000 gallon discharge a day of clean/treated wastewater, the city is capturing up to 200,000 gallons and sending that through an additional filtration system, which makes it cleaner. “Our discharge is chlorinated to kill bacteria and then de-chlorinated before discharge,” he said. This is the water that is going into the lake and into the storm water bayou that runs to Keegan’s Bayou and onto the Gulf, he explains. He also said the process is monitored and permitted by Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I walked to the lake last night and while being far from finished, it is absolutely awesome. It is the pinnacle of a myriad of great improvements that have taken place during the McGrath-Jessup era. I almost feel bad for anyone who doesn’t live here.

    As far as the drought goes, who could have predicted it? But we can’t let mother nature stop something this great.

    I hope the lake is completed by July 4th and we still have a few bucks left for fireworks.

  2. I passed by there last night and the water was gushing out of the pipe. Talk about bad timing. Why couldn’t they wait until we get some rain??