Brazos River Authority officials say residents in six Central Texas counties would benefit from water being moved from Belton Lake to Stillhouse Hollow through the Belhouse Drought Preparedness Project.
The Belhouse pipeline would pump water out of Belton Lake near the Deadfish Grill and run seven miles to Stillhouse. Then, water would be piped to Lake Georgetown and other areas to provide drinking water during times of drought.
“While we do pump to Lake Georgetown through the Williamson County Regional Raw Water Line, municipalities in four other counties draw their water from Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir,” said Judi Pierce, public information officer for BRA. “They would benefit from water being available through the Belhouse pipeline should drought cause lake levels in Stillhouse to severely decline.”
“Besides Bell and Williamson counties, (residents in) Lampasas, Burnet, Milam and Falls will benefit from the ability to move water from Belton Lake to Stillhouse Hollow,” Pierce added.
Construction of the one-way Belhouse pipeline linking the two lakes is expected to begin in 2028 and be operational by 2032, according to another BRA official — Brad Brunett, chief operations officer.
“The permitting and design phase for Belhouse began in May,” Brunett said. “Design for both the intake structure and pipeline are under way by the Walker Partners engineering team, and they are expected to be in early 2026.”
He said the pipeline route that was presented at the public hearing in 2023 will be pursued, with some minor deviations as a result of recent development.
The pipeline will allow water to flow from Belton Lake to Stillhouse, to provide water for drought-related needs in Austin’s booming northern suburbs.
“As populations in the Georgetown and Round Rock areas grow, there won’t be enough water for Brazos River Authority customers served by Lake Georgetown,” Brunett said.
“Lake Georgetown is small,” he said. “During dry times, there simply is not enough water in Lake Georgetown to meet the needs.”
According to the US Census Bureau, Georgetown is one of the fastest growing cities in America, and its population of 104,000 is expected to double in less than seven years.
The Brazos River Authority has been pumping water from Stillhouse to Lake Georgetown for years, but the potential amount of water being moved will soon increase, Brunett said.
A whopping 20 billion gallons of water every year could be piped from Stillhouse Hollow Reservoir to Lake Georgetown in the next few years, and up to 9.8 billion gallons could be moved annually from Lake Belton to Stillhouse by the Belhouse pipeline.
“We first started pumping in 2006, and we added multiple pumps in 2011,” Brunett said. “We have four pumps capable of pumping 42 million gallons a day. We are replacing those with four higher-capacity pumps that can move 56 million gallons per day. There will still be one pipeline, but we will be able to move more water.”
“We are currently in the pump design phase, and it will be two or three years before they are operational,” he said. Once complete, they will have the capacity to transfer about 61,000-acre-feet — 19.88 billion gallons — from Stillhouse to Georgetown annually.
The amount of water actually transferred is related directly to ongoing drought conditions.
“The pumps don’t run constantly,” Brunett said. “It all depends on the weather and how much natural runoff goes into Lake Georgetown. In 2016, the pumps didn’t run at all. But, in 2022, they ran most of the year.”
