History

BWA has an agreement to purchase in excess of 1 million gallons a day of treated water from the City of Fort Worth when necessary for emergencies or during periods of peak demand.

The BWA Water Treatment Plant has a maximum rated capacity of 12 million gallons per day (MGD) with a maximum use to date of 8.9 MGD. Additional peaking capacity is available from the well system and can produce an additional 1 MGD for a combined production capacity of 13 MGD.

Storage capacity for water in Benbrook is 4.2 million gallons (MG) in overhead storage tanks and 6.5 MG in ground storage tanks, for a total of 10.7 MG.

Water is obtained from Benbrook Lake and from 12 groundwater wells. Benbrook Lake is owned and operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for the purposes of water supply and flood control. The lake was constructed beginning in 1947 and began impounding water in 1952. Learn  more information on Benbrook Lake via the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers website.

In 1991, BWA’s water rights in the lake were consolidated with the rights of Fort Worth and Weatherford under the management of the Tarrant County Water Control and Improvement District Number 1 (now called the Tarrant Regional Water District). Under this arrangement Benbrook can divert sufficient water from the lake for all its existing and future needs and the Tarrant Regional Water District will be able to balance water demands among all of the north and eastern Texas reservoirs.

In 1991 to 1992, BWA completed construction and put into service a new raw water intake structure and pipeline to withdraw greater quantities of better quality water directly from Benbrook Lake to be treated and used in its water supplies. The result is reduced water turbidity, which has produced more consistent treatment and finished waters with turbidity values below the 0.05 Nephelometric Turbidity Units (NTU) requirement of the Surface Water Treatment Rule.

BWA collects wastewater from residential and commercial customers. The collection systems of BWA and the City of Fort Worth are interconnected in over 40 locations.

BWA provides collection in south Benbrook, Westpark and portions of Trinity Ranch prior to discharge into the Fort Worth system. North Benbrook, Ridglea Country club and Mont Del Estates are served by a combination of BWA and Fort Worth collection lines. Some areas of Benbrook are not connected to the BWA wastewater collection system. Many of these areas had septic systems prior to the availability of sanitary sewer service and have chosen to remain on their private system. Many of these private systems will eventually connect to the BWA sewer system when their septic system fails.

The areas without residential sanitary sewer service are diminishing rapidly with the passage of time.

Wastewater is treated under contract with the City of Fort Worth at their regional treatment center at Village Creek, using conventional treatment with sand filtration. Wastewater capacity from Benbrook is not limited. An expansion completed in 1999 increased the capacity of the Village Creek facility to 166 millions of gallons per day.

The 12 private groundwater wells currently in service in Benbrook tap the Paluxy and Trinity sands, two of the major aquifers in the subsurface of North Central Texas, and have a maximum production capacity of 1 million gallons per day.