The North Texas Municipal Water District wants to build a fourth raw water pump station at Lavon Lake that could keep pulling water even if the lake falls below the level its current intakes can reach, and the first federal paperwork for it goes to the district's board Thursday.
A memorandum of agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sits on the consent agenda for the board's 2 p.m. meeting Oct. 22 at the district's Wylie offices. It would have the district pay the Corps $207,370 to review the project: $157,370 for general Corps support and $50,000 for its dam safety division's review through 30% design.
The money would come from the district's regional water system capital improvement fund.
What would be built
Staff describe Raw Water Pump Station No. 4 as a station with 350 million gallons a day of pumping capacity and an intake at 451 feet above sea level, two feet below Lavon Lake's dead pool elevation of 453 feet.
The agreement says the project includes about five miles of pipeline to two delivery points at the Wylie Water Treatment Plant complex and the replacement of one aging pump station.
The engineer's current estimate of construction cost is $453 million, the staff memo says.
According to the agreement, the station is meant to keep water flowing from the lake to the Wylie plant for member and customer communities in Collin, Rockwall, north Dallas and Kaufman counties and parts of nearby counties if a drought drops the lake below the intakes of the existing pump stations. It would also let the district replace older stations before they fail.
