CEDAR CREEK LAKE–West Cedar Creek Municipal Utility District’s (WCCMUD) board voted July 5 to take a wait-and-see approach on a variance request by a homebuilder that they were told poured a foot of foundation concrete over a six-foot MUD easement.
WCCMUD General Manager Tony Ciardo said the homebuilder requested the variance to the district’s utility easement at 2001 Emma Dr. in Tool while workers were in the process of pouring the concrete. Ciardo refused to grant the variance and said he’d take it to the WCCMUD board.
“This was just wrong from the day one, they should have never done this,” said Ciardo, who said the company is “trying to back the district into a corner” to get a signature on a variance. Ciardo said Field Operations Manager Kenneth Wright has devised a solution around the sewer snafu.
Ciardo told the board he wouldn’t want to make giving such a variance “standard practice.” He continued, “We already have a hard enough time dealing with some of these instances and we’ve worked diligently to make sure what we do – and have for years – make it right.”
The board approved Larry Elliott’s motion to “grant the variance after inspection by our employees to our satisfaction.”
Earlier in the meeting, Board President Wanda Sanders said Eldon Cox had resigned from the board after June’s meeting because he was moving to Mississippi. The board appointed former Tool and Kemp Police Chief Darrell Dean to the vacancy, which now gives the seven-seat board five members, Sanders said.
Also, during the district’s operational status update, Plant Operations Manager Kenneth Malin told the board the district’s water system had in June its first annual inspection in three years by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, which he said was delayed because of the COVID pandemic. Malin said he should have a report on that inspection by the district’s next board meeting.
Malin also informed the board that the district had 2.4 million gallons of water output in one day over the Fourth of July weekend. Malin said the district is outputting “steadily” more than 2 million gallons of water daily. WCCMUD documents show that the district in 2021 averaged water sales of 1.34 million gallons per day with a high of 2.731 million gallons on July 26.
Wright said Cedar Creek Lake was 2.85 feet low the day of the meeting. Ciardo expressed concern about the continuing drought and likened it to 2011, which had a simmering summer with dry conditions. Ciardo discussed the district’s drought contingency plan that restricts non-essential water uses. Later, during the general manager’s update on general operations, Ciardo said the district is performing service and maintenance on a barge that has an emergency water pump station, which he told The Monitor is being done “just in case” it’s needed.
Ciardo also updated the board on extending a sewer collection system to the Key Ranch and Ruth Springs subdivisions, saying work continues along State Highway (SH) 274. Ciardo said workers are finishing the last 400 feet of sewer pipeline nearing the SH 274 and Key Ranch Road intersection. Workers then will link to the district’s sewer treatment plant, located north of the Cedar Creek Lake spillway, by running the sewer line underneath Tarrant Regional Water District’s water pipeline.