- City:
- Austin, TX
- Site Type:
- Infrastructure and Utilities, Sanitation and Water Disposal
- New Deal Agencies:
- Public Works Funding, Public Works Administration (PWA)
- Started:
- 1935
- Completed:
- 1937
- Designers:
- Freese and Nichols, Hawley
- Contractor:
- Brown and Root Inc.
Description
In 1934, the Public Works Administration approved a $500,000 grant and loan package for the construction of a sewage disposal plant for the City of Austin. The city purchased 31 acres of land along the Colorado River for the site of the new plant, which was to be a revolutionary facility designed for a relatively new treatment process using activated sludge. The city hired the architecture and engineering consulting firm of Hawley, Freese and Nichols to design the 6 million gallon a day plant. Brown and Root, Inc. received the contract to build the plant in November 1935. In May 1937, the Govalle Wastewater Treatment Plant was finished.
The Govalle Plant treated wastewater for 69 years before it was decommissioned in October 2006. The site continues to serve the city as the Austin Water Utility Govalle Occupational Development and Support Center.
Source notes
Austin City Council Meeting Minutes - July 26, 1934 https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=88986 Austin City Council Meeting Minutes - August 23, 1934 https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=88990 Austin City Council Meeting Minutes - November 21, 1935 https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=118328 Austin City Council Meeting Minutes - May 27, 1937 https://www.austintexas.gov/edims/document.cfm?id=118417 Austin Water: Water and Wastewater History https://www.austintexas.gov/department/water-and-wastewater-historySite originally submitted by Larry Moore on May 8, 2014.
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Sherre Boothman
Gabriel Milner
Pat Caballero
I would like to bring my Chemistry students to tour your facility and have the treatment process explained to them. It would be 35 student and two to four adults. I would like it to be between Monday-Friday and between 8:30 AM and 4:00 PM. The students are sophmores attending the private school, Headwaters. The precise timing and date is very negotiable.
Please let me know if this is possible ASAP?
Thanks,
Sherre Boothman
Science Teacher
The Headwaters School
Austin, TX
You will need to contact the facility directly: (512) 974-2000
I was one of the design engineers that worked on the tunnel that delivers the wastewater to the tunnel. The tunnel has a 10 foot outside diameter, 8 foot inside diameter ( one foot thick concrete walls), 8 1/2 miles long. At some point it is 140 below ground.