LEAGUE CITY — City officials knew for years about problems plaguing a water distribution plant but apparently never told the city council, according to memos and e-mails.
The city bought the plant on state Highway 3 in Webster from the Gulf Coast Water Authority in 2000 for $175,000 and spent $1 million in 2005 trying to fix it. It never has worked.
Council members first learned about the problem during a mid-July water shortage that forced officials to restrict consumption for weeks.
Since then, the city has spent $75,000 trying to repair the plant. Crews still have been unable to get it working as it should. Problems have been exacerbated because the plant sat dormant for years, City Engineer Jack Murphy said.
Records show the water superintendent, the city engineer and the public works director discussed why the plant wasn’t working for at least five years.
The water superintendent, who resigned in July, said in a 2006 e-mail that the idle plant was “creating a very serious issue within our transmission and distribution system, which could possibly affect water service throughout the entire city.”
Jim Boyle, who worked for the city for 25 years, resigned at the height of the water crisis. Boyle claims city officials told him to resign or face termination for taking vacation during the crisis and for modifying a city ordinance without authority.
Council members first learned about problems at the water plant in mid-July when Mayor Toni Randall asked to hire an engineering firm to assess the condition of and improvements needed to the plant. Council members repeatedly expressed dismay that they were kept in the dark about the plant’s condition.
Records show Boyle sent e-mails and memos to the city engineer and public works director complaining that a Florida-based firm hired to repair the plant in 2005 sent engineers who weren’t experienced in water facilities. The city paid PBS&J $1 million for repairs, but the engineers never could get the plant running without damaging the water lines it fed.
No one knows
No one seems to know why the council never was told about the problems.
Among those copied on the e-mails, Murphy alone still works for the city.
“I can’t tell you why because I don’t know why they weren’t aware of it,” Murphy said.
Murphy said his direct supervisor — the public works director — knew about the problems, and under the city’s chain of command, that was the only person he was required to tell.
He said he was confident then-Public Works Director Larry Herbert “had it handled.”
Herbert, who ran public works for three years, resigned in June to take a job consulting for Kuwait’s navy.
Before him, Chris Peifer was public works director. He is now the assistant city manager of West University Place. Peifer, who worked in League City until 2006, said he remembered having conversations with city staff and the city attorney about the plant’s problems.
He said he was sure he brought it to the attention of the city administrator because “there were no secrets” between his department and the city administration.
There were seven city administrators during Peifer’s tenure as public works director.
Under pressure
Peifer did tell then-City Administrator Chuck Pinto about the problems in a 2006 e-mail when Pinto asked about the water pressure problems in The Meadows Subdivision.
Peifer said the plant would go online “within a few weeks” and would boost pressure and water capacity on the city’s east side.
The firm PBS&J never finished the job because the city’s water officials no longer trusted it to do the repairs correctly, Murphy said.
After at least 15 unsuccessful attempts by city crews to get the plant started, City Attorney Arnold Polanco sent PBS&J a letter in 2006 outlining dissatisfaction with the company. Polanco said PBS&J never responded.
But Kathe Riley Jackson, vice president for corporate communications at PBS&J, said “it appears we have not been contacted by the city about this matter at all.”
Boyle complained in memos that PBS&J sent its “B team” of engineers who weren’t familiar with water facilities nor their own firm’s design of the plant.
Each time they started the plant, the pumps generated too much pressure, which created leaks in city water lines.
Frustrated
Boyle grew increasingly frustrated and lashed out at Herbert and Murphy in e-mails. He called for the city to hire another firm to assess the plant. He said he was worried starting the plant would blow out a water line and drain reserves, leaving too little even to drink or fight fires.
“It is my opinion that when this failure happens, an investigation will follow by the city administrator, assistant city administrator, mayor and council, the public and the news media,” he wrote in a memo to Herbert in June 2008.
“They would then go back and review notes and comments and the question would come up as to why wasn’t anything done about the Hwy. 3 plant.”
But every time the city planned to fix the plant, crews were sidetracked by other leaks or breaks in lines and the repairs never got done, Murphy said.
After Boyle left in July, he told Randall about the problems.
She asked to hire Houston-based Camp Dresser & McKee to repair the plant. Those engineers, who have been working since July, started up the plant manually, but have been unable to run it in automatic mode, Murphy said.
Once it’s back online, perhaps in a few weeks, the pumping station will be able to distribute up to 15 million gallons of water a day from Houston’s Southeast Water Treatment Plant, boosting water pressure throughout the city, Murphy said. The plant also will have the capability to store up to 2 million gallons of water.
Reporter Rhiannon Meyers can be reached at 409-683-5236 or rhiannon.meyers(at)galvnews.com.
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By the numbers
• $175,000 to buy the plant in 2000
• $1 million to PBS&J engineers to get plant operational
• $42,000 to Camp Dresser and McKee to assess why plant wasn’t working
• $33,343 to Camp Dresser and McKee to make it work
