MINERAL WELLS — The manager of the water district building Turkey Peak Reservoir told the Mineral Wells City Council bids are set to be opened Aug. 29.
“We will be opening the bids for construction of Turkey Peak Reservoir in Austin, Texas,” Howard Huffman said during an exhaustive update on all things water.
Huffman, who leads the Palo Pinto County Municipal Water District No. 1 that will build and own the new lake, also said the district’s board and the city will sign paperwork in October to receive the second installment in the $200 million state loan to build the lake — $100 million.
“You are my No. 1 insurer of the debt,” he told the city leaders.
Once the four bids are opened, Huffman said, engineers and project management will develop a synopsis of the submissions which they will discuss on Sept. 29.
The bid package is comprehensive, for not just the new dam but a bridge across the Lake Palo Pinto dam and upgrades to county roads affected by the new lake.
“We’ll know more at the end of September where we stand,” he said. “If we need another month to make sure this is done right we’ll take that, or two months..”
When Ward 4 Councilman Mike Rankin asked if the city had a vote on which company or companies get the job, Huffman distinguished the lake project from typical government bid processes.
“This is not a low-bid (selection),” he said. “This is a data-driven process.”
He then described the 1-5 point system for elements in each contractor’s proposal. The matrix of determinants includes the contractors’ management team, its credit rating, personnel, everything “from dozers to its office.”
Ward 3 Councilwoman Beth Watson asked if the district’s $200 million estimate for building the lake, which will be immediately off the Lake Palo Pinto dam, still holds.
“Have (bidding contractors) indicated that’s pretty close to the mark?” she asked. “Or are we waiting to see what comes in the envelopes?”
Huffman replied none of contractors’ questions have indicated concern the cost was off the mark.
He also said concerns over the potential effects from tariffs have “calmed down,” and that interest rates are expected to diminish in the fall.
“So in answer to your question, we still have high confidence we’ll come in at that ($200 million) number,” Huffman said.
Huffman then turned his comments to the city residents and the seven water wholesalers whose rates were raised to back the state loan.
City residents were promised a 148% water rate hike across five years, though the council did not enact the hike planned for this year. The wholesalers passed on the hike in varying degrees to their 30,000 customers in Palo Pinto and southern Parker counties.
“Any interest that rolls into my account will lower what the ratepayers have to pay,” Huffman said. “We have to make sure we’re not taking any money that’s not needed from the ratepayers.”
Huffman also said ratepayers will not be asked to fund a reroute the district, in partnership with Palo Pinto County, will build as an alternate route for a part of Farm-to-Market 4 that the lake will submerge.
One of two of the district’s direct customers at Lake Palo Pinto, which the district owns, has agreed to take on that expense.
He did not name “that entity.”
“It’s not city citizens in Mineral Wells or it’s seven wholesalers,” he said.
Huffman also updated the council on a reverse osmosis plant near the Brazos community. The facility was put into the city’s water plans in 2024 after successive drought years.
The water district is negotiating with the owner of the land where the plant will be, he said.
“Maybe the district goes down and does some things (for the landowner) on the property, maybe some brush clearing,” he said.
Huffman also indicated need for the reverse osmosis plant, which will remove Brazos River salt before blending it with creek water and sending on to the city’s treatment plant, is not as immediate as it had been a year ago.
The blending adds about 1.6 billion gallons of raw water to the city’s capacity.
“We had a great summer,” he said. “We’re very lucky this year, and yes, blending is a way to keep the cubic feet we take out of the river at a minimum.”
— Tuesday’s meeting was a regular council meeting during which the council also took care of two significant action items.
One, coming after a short closed session, amended Weeks’ contract to say it would take five votes to fire him without cause.
The other was to keep the regular meeting days to 6 p.m. on the first and third Tuesdays of each month.
The decision was in response to House Bill 1522, a recently passed law changing the three-day public notice required for governmental meetings from 72 linear hours to three business days.
It means the city would have to post meeting agendas for Tuesday meetings by 6 p.m. on preceding Wednesdays instead of Fridays as the Open Meetings Act historically has required.“Holidays and weekends do not count anymore (in the notice requirement),” Weeks told the council, before several members said the Tuesday sessions fit work and family schedules best.