The Texas Rural Water Association recently named East Cedar Creek Fresh Water Supply District General Manager Bill Goheen as “Manager of the Year."

He will be featured in the association’s magazine, Quench.

The ECCFWSD Board of Directors announced the honor at a special meeting April 2.

During the meeting, the board approved a resolution to seek approval from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for the issuance of $3 million in bonds to fund capital improvements.

The bonds would fund the first phase of the district’s planned Northside Water System Master Plan and all costs related to it, such as engineering fees. The resolution also approved the payment of a $500 application filing fee to the state agency.

In late 2014 the board asked KSA Engineers to prepare a master plan for the Northside System that would include a water model of the existing system, a projection of future growth and the identification of improvements necessary to comply with TCEQ regulations regarding water distribution capacities.

The planned $3 million expenditure is the outgrowth of that study. Recent increases in ECCFWSD rates also are attributed in part to the planned improvements.

The engineers based projected needs on an average growth rate of 2.437 per cent anticipated for Gun Barrel City through the year 2070, according to the Texas Water Development Board’s 2016 Regional Water Plan Projections.

The engineers recommended capital improvements based on five-year, 10-year and 20-year intervals in addition to immediate needs. The improvements include installing new, larger water lines, increasing pump sizes at the Brookshire Plant Intake Structure, constructing new elevated water storage facilities and expanding the Brookshire Water Treatment Plant.