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Accessing reliable sources of water is becoming more difficult for some Central Texans — and more expensive. In Kyle, residents facing high water bills are carefully considering any way that they can limit their costs.
Plus: We’ll chat about the work being done to bring together Central Texans of all religious backgrounds.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:09] Accessing reliable sources of water is becoming more difficult for some Central Texans and more expensive to boot. In Kyle, residents facing high water bills are carefully considering any way that they can limit their costs. We’re going to hear from some of them. An Austin firefighter has been granted workers’ comp rights, but that decision this week granting the benefits came after a long fight with the city. Why she had to fight for benefits and why she’s hoping her fight will make it easier for others. More about these stories coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:38] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Kehanel.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:43] Plus, we’ve got a little Texas music history heading into your weekend. And we’re going to chat about the work being done to bring together central Texans of all religious backgrounds. Those stories coming up next. That’s right here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, you are listening to Austin Signal here on Community Powered Public Radio. This is KUT News, it is finally Friday, April 24th. Thank you for tuning in. Well despite the rain, over the past week or so, Central Texas remains in a serious drought. Water access is becoming more difficult and more expensive. In Kyle, water rates jumped considerably last fall, leaving some residents struggling to keep on top of their bills. KUT’s Hayes County reporter Lee Walden has the story.
Leigh Walden [00:01:40] Carol Dagens and her husband are constantly thinking about water when doing the laundry.
Carol Dagens [00:01:47] Wash our clothes. We load the washer more than we normally would have done in the kitchen maybe once or twice a week. We really load the dishwasher and then we run the dishwasher. And of course in the bathroom we time our showers.
Leigh Walden [00:02:05] 8 to 10 minutes. They aren’t flushing their toilets after they pee. She isn’t shaving as often. They don’t let the water run while the shower is heating up. Then there’s family. They were considering having all five grandkids come visit. But then we thought way
Carol Dagens [00:02:20] Wait a minute. We will be using a whole lot of water if we have them all at one time. Doggins isn’t some sort of hardline environmentalist. She’s worried about her water bill. Okay, in January, our bill was $222.84.
Leigh Walden [00:02:39] Doggins and her husband moved near Kyle from Dallas last year. They’re thinking about retirement, but they wanted to get out of the big city, a little bit more into the country, quieter and a slower pace. They were not thinking about what their water bill might be. Coming from Dallas.
Carol Dagens [00:02:55] Our average water bill was under $100. In the summer, high heat, you know, high water usage, $125. And to pay no sprinkler, no grandkids, all of that, to pay over $200 for water is outrageous.
Leigh Walden [00:03:16] Doggins jokes that their timing was terrible. They signed on their house on October 2nd of last year. That was the day after Kyle adopted new, higher water rates. The new rates raised the cost of water in the Doggins’ neighborhood by 77%. They’re just outside Kyle’s city limits, but they still get water from Kyle’s municipal utility. Rates for people inside city limits increased by 20%. Residents both inside and outside the city are struggling to keep up. Maybe your Santos is a single mother within the city limits. I’m afraid to see what the bill is going to be every other day, every other month.
Sharon Thompson [00:03:51] Because I don’t know. It’s not normal.
Leigh Walden [00:03:54] Sharon Thompson is another resident outside of Kyle City limits. I use paper plates. That’s one big thing.
Sharon Thompson [00:04:00] Is I bought cheap paper plates at the grocery store and I don’t use my regular, just, you know.
Leigh Walden [00:04:06] You know, everyday dinnerware, because that would make more dishes for the dishwasher. They’re changing their habits, letting their lawns die, giving away houseplants. Part of the reason for the growing water costs is simple. Water in central Texas is drying up, aquifer levels are going down, surface water is becoming scarcer. Kyle is also one of the fastest-growing cities in the nation. More people means more water. It also means more poop.
Robert Defredis [00:04:31] So this is where it all comes in.
Leigh Walden [00:04:34] We’re at Kyle’s wastewater treatment facility. It smells like, well, I bet you can imagine what it smells like. Take whatever you’re imagining and double it.
Robert Defredis [00:04:43] A lot of people’s favorite place.
Leigh Walden [00:04:45] Maybe even triple it. Robert Defredis is the chief operating manager at the facility. He shows us a room where two steel conveyor belt type machines mimic what the digestive track does inside our body. They dry out and dispose of the bad stuff, collect the water, and the good stuff. From there, the wastewater flows into huge tanks to get treated.
Robert Defredis [00:05:04] So we don’t do anything that doesn’t happen in nature already, you know. Everybody, you’re going to see these big basins of brown water and everybody’s like, oh, look at all that poop. It’s not poop, it’s sludge.
Leigh Walden [00:05:17] There’s a lot of sludge here, but they’re running out of room for all that crap. Uh, sludge. And they don’t have much time, so they’re expanding, building more space to treat the growing volume of wastewater coming into the facility. The city approved money to add a little extra capacity while they work on larger-scale expansion.
Robert Defredis [00:05:36] Took a small part of the project, the engineers put it out there so that buys us the two extra years.
Leigh Walden [00:05:43] Two extra years that they’ll need to finish that large expansion, which will double the facility’s capacity. A bigger wastewater facility is just one of the projects pushing up water and wastewater bills in Kyle. Water services are expanding too. The city is building new storage facilities, pumping stations, and pipelines. Alice and Kelly as the Assistant Communications Director for the City of Kyle.
Allison Kelly [00:06:06] There is no cheap water anymore. We’re all in central Texas in the same boat where we need to provide safe, clean drinking water for our residents.
Leigh Walden [00:06:17] Still, residents outside of Kyle’s city limits appear to be paying some of the highest water rates in the region. Their average bill is around $260 a month. Down in San Marcos, the average bill less than $50 a month, those huge bills have some city officials concerned.
Courtney Goza [00:06:32] I wasn’t sure that it was proven sufficiently that it costs us that much more to supply them with water.
Leigh Walden [00:06:40] Courtney Goza is a newly-elected Kyle City Council member. She wasn’t on the council when they voted on the hikes. The city made the changes based off of recommendations from Austin-based consulting firm, Roftellis. The firm declined to comment for the story. Roftelis’s report to the city included recommended rate increases every fall for the next five years. Rates for customers inside Kyle City limits were recommended to increase another 20% this October. Rates for all Kylewater customers would increase another 20% the following year. Residents don’t know if they’ll be able to keep up. Carol Dagens wonders if they will stay.
Carol Dagens [00:07:15] I will be moving if that happens, because I can’t, I barely can afford this rate kite. What, I mean, I don’t get the purpose.
Leigh Walden [00:07:27] From Kyle, I’m Leigh Walden.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:36] An Austin firefighter has been granted workers’ comp rights while she is battling cancer. And as we hear from KUT’s Andrew Weber, the decision this week granting those benefits came after a long fight with the city.
Andrew Weber [00:07:51] Austin firefighter Suzanne Lafollette didn’t feel particularly heroic when she was injured on the job a few years ago. A crew had just knocked down a fire, she was helping clean up, and she took a tumble.
Suzanne Lafollette [00:08:02] Really unheroic. I really wish I was walking out of the house with a baby in one hand and a dog in the other But I wasn’t I just stepped in a hole and I was carrying a club
Andrew Weber [00:08:13] Clipboard that ankle sprain was fully covered by workers compensation strictly because she was in her full uniform If she hadn’t it wouldn’t have been covered she says then last year just a few weeks after she married her wife, Sarah Suzanne was in excruciating pain. She thought it had been UTIs Maybe paramenopause Lafollette says as a 19 year firefighter you learn to live with pain You learn to leave with other people’s pain, but one night her pain was too much. She started bleeding. It wouldn’t stop After an ER visit, an oncologist told her she had cancer, late stage cancer. It was, in a weird way, La Follette says, kind of a relief.
Suzanne Lafollette [00:08:51] When you finally get a confirmation that yes, there is something going on with you. Yes, there’s something in your body that shouldn’t be there was a relief. I was like, okay, now we’re getting somewhere. Now I know what it is and now we can do something about it.
Andrew Weber [00:09:05] Then Lafollette got in touch with the union, tried to file another workers’ comp complaint, one that argued she was exposed to cancer-causing chemicals over her nearly two decades on the job.
Suzanne Lafollette [00:09:17] They didn’t send a city employee, a city representative, anyone there to say, yes, I made the decision that Suzanne’s worker’s comp was not covered and this is why. They didn’t do that.
Andrew Weber [00:09:29] Unlike that unheroic sprained ankle from a few years ago, this time facing a terminal cancer diagnosis, she wouldn’t have the safety net of workers’ comp. That’s because of a gender disparity in state law. It allowed Austin to deny Lafollette’s workers’ camp. The state’s labor code includes reproductive cancers for male firefighters to be covered, testicular cancer, prostate cancer, but not female reproductive cancers. So, without any other option, she decided to fight the city’s denial in a state court, and she started posting on Instagram. Facebook. At first, to update her friends.
Suzanne Lafollette [00:10:02] Chemo day number one. Day two after my first chemo round. I’m starting to feel it. Day three chemo, walking on the treadmill today. Post-chemo round three, day 18. I think today’s the first day I didn’t take a nap.
Andrew Weber [00:10:16] Then she realized she could weaponize the platform to put pressure on the city.
Suzanne Lafollette [00:10:21] The Austin Fire Department has denied my claim at the benefit review conference. That means we’re continuing on, y’all. They claim that.
Andrew Weber [00:10:29] And it worked. La Follette successfully got the attention of the city, city council members, and the mayor, and this week, she got the backing of the courts. A state judge who was reviewing her case ordered the city grant her workers comp. Lafollette also got the attention of Donna Howard, a state lawmaker who says she wants to close this glaring gap in coverage for female first responders.
Sharon Thompson [00:10:49] This is absolutely something my office is going to want to be focused on.
Andrew Weber [00:10:53] The Austin Democrat said, despite deep divisions in the Texas Capitol, bills to get more coverage for first responders have garnered support from both sides of the aisle in recent years. One was even backed by now House Speaker Dustin Burroughs.
Sharon Thompson [00:11:04] We’re talking about first responders, which are highly valued on a bipartisan basis here at the Capitol, especially in light of the fact that I don’t think that my colleagues want to appear to be anti-woman when we’re talking about first-responders and cancer.
Andrew Weber [00:11:22] For Lafollette, none of this experience has embittered her. She wears a hat made by a friend, emblazoned with I am alive. She wears it to remind her whatever she’s going through, whatever she is feeling, is part of a messy human experience. Part of being alive. She says after nine rounds of chemo treatments, she’s lucky to have had the strength to fight. Not just for her, but for future women who want to risk their lives fighting fires. Because she’s just one of scores of women in firefighting. Women who fought for bathrooms and firehouses, gear that actually fit them, even coverage for breast cancer treatments.
Suzanne Lafollette [00:11:57] I absolutely benefited from a lot of those changes. So this gives me an opportunity to maybe help make this change so that the women behind me will forget that reproductive cancers weren’t covered because if they get sick, they just are and they never really had to think about it. And that’s the kind of future that we really hope for.
Andrew Weber [00:12:23] La Follette jokes that her misery is going to benefit someone, but right now she is alive, and she is loved, and she says she is still fighting.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:39] And we’re going to have links to Andrew and Lee’s stories in the podcast show notes, and you can find more at kut.org slash signal. We’re coming up on a short break. We’ll be right back. This is Austin signal. This is Austin Signal, welcome back. We’ve got some Texas music history to share with you on this Friday. Today we’re learning about Cliff Bruner, a prolific fiddler who became a pioneer of the western swing sound more than 100 years ago. Jason Mellard from the Center for Texas Music History at Texas State University tells us about his legacy.
Jason Mellard [00:13:27] This week in Texas music history, Western Swing tunes in to Twin Fiddles for the first time. On April 25th, 1915, Western swing fiddler Cliff Brunner was born in Texas City. Bruner went to high school in Tomball, where he started playing in the Twin Fiddle style with Jasper Heaton. The two developed a reputation around East Texas, supplementing their farm work with dance gigs in Houston. When Brunar was 18, he received an invitation from Milton Brown, a founding father of western swing with the light crust doughboys and musical brownies. Brown wanted his band to bring in twin fiddlers, pairing Brunner with Cecil Brower. Bruner jumped at the chance. Riding high despite the Great Depression, Bruners recorded four dozen sides with Brown over two years before the band leaders’ untimely death in 1936. Brunner, now 20, moved to Houston and launched his own group, Cliff Bruner and the Texas Wanderers. Bruners’ Wanderer’s had a few claims to fame, a hit version of the standard It Makes No Difference Now, one of the earliest truck songs with Ted Daffin’s Truck Driver’s Blues, and Leo Rayleigh, among the first to perform with electrically amplified mandolin. Bruner moved the Wanderers from Houston to Beaumont and settled in as one of the Golden Triangle’s premier dance bands. He also rossened up his bow in the political arena, supporting the campaign bands of Texas Governor Papi O’Daniel and Louisiana Governor Jimmy Davis. Bruners told historian Gene Boyd that, I never tried to copy anybody’s style, never in my life. I created my own and I had to live with it, good or bad. But his playing also echoed Western Swing’s jazz influences. Bruner named both Joe Venuti and Stuff Smith as role models. And he paid those influences forward. As Gene Boyd wrote, Bruno was a powerful jazz violinist whose earthy grassroots musical language identified him with Texas and made his style easy for younger violinists to understand and emulate.
Music [00:15:34] Save my soul, save my soul. My mortal soul.
Jason Mellard [00:15:37] You can hear music from the Lone Star State 24-7 on the Texas Music Experience at TMX.fm.
Music [00:15:44] My mama’s baby boy Ain’t no use you kids to keep on hangin’ round, hangin round and up here and I Dear Anna, I hate to turn you down
Jerry Quijano [00:15:55] Acts of kindness can go a long way here in our community, especially during trying times. One Austin organization hopes to bridge gaps between others through service. Joining me now to talk more about that is Simone Talma Flowers. She is the executive director of Interfaith Action of Central Texas, also known as IACT. Welcome to the show, Simone.
Simone Talma [00:16:16] It is wonderful to be here. Thank you, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:19] So for our listeners who might not be familiar with interfaith action, can you tell us a little bit about what y’all do?
Simone Talma [00:16:24] So Interfaith Action of Central Texas, our mission is to cultivate peace and respect through interfaith dialog, service and celebration. So everything that we do is about breaking down the barriers that divide us. So in a nutshell, it’s about reducing prejudice.
Jerry Quijano [00:16:42] Working in the news, we hear a lot about divisions among Americans, among people over a variety of issues. When you’re out working with the community, do you see that division or do you see unity? What do you when you’re working with people who come from a variety backgrounds?
Simone Talma [00:17:02] So we believe that you need to be in proximity of each other. So everything that we do, we have service projects where we repair homes for low income homeowners, where you can come out and volunteer and maybe paint, do some minor repairs, and you get to work alongside others. People from different faiths, different cultures, different backgrounds, world views, and you’re working on a common task, right? You have a common goal and you focus on that goal because… It’s to beautify or to make somebody’s home safe. And you put aside the differences because you’re working for that common goal. And we get to see people putting their compassion into action, you get to the goodness of humanity. You get to seed the beauty that we all share, that we will bring to this world. I am humbled like almost daily. By the generosity of spirit, that I.
Jerry Quijano [00:18:04] If they’re curious and wanna know more about iACTA, how can they get involved and what sort of events do you have coming up soon?
Simone Talma [00:18:11] So we have our major fundraiser called the Hope Awards, and that’s coming up on April 28th. And the Hope awards honors people in our community who put hope into action. So they exemplify the mission of IACT. So this year, we are honoring Mike Blair, who was the former creative director of GSDNM. And he, during the pandemic, he wrote, well, he started writing poems, every day to lift people’s spirits. And he’s still writing it every day today.
Jerry Quijano [00:18:43] Yeah, we still need it today.
Simone Talma [00:18:44] Exactly. And then we’re also honoring the Baha’i community of Austin. And this is a community that believe in the oneness of humanity. And one of their tenants is, you know, everyone is beautiful, right? And so they combat prejudice of any forms. And so for us, it’s like, again, this is another community that lives out our mission, and we want to highlight them. And that’s what we do in so many different programs, our Red Bench, we go out to different communities to learn about how we can have civil dialog. We do this passport program where we go to different communities to experience what it is like to worship in a mosque, in a synagogue, in the Buddhist temple, in Hindu temple, in the plethora of Christian faiths. We work with many refugees who have been resettled here in Austin. We teach English language instruction, youth mentoring and health and wellness. So we always need volunteers to support our refugees, well, support refugees as they transition into this community.
Jerry Quijano [00:19:56] How has that changed as things have been playing out with immigration and customs enforcement here in Austin and just across the country generally?
Simone Talma [00:20:06] So one of the treasures of our community is diversity. And when refugees come here into the US, these are people who have lived through so much. They are strong people, they are survivors. And they come here to start a new life. So One of the big issues that we have been facing So many are fearful to leave their homes. We have been doing a lot of adapting in our programming where we have more online classes. So people are not fearful. It is a sad situation because we want everyone to feel safe and be able to send their kids to school because they came here to have a better life, to have new beginning. And we are in a situation where many are getting this message that they’re not wanted here. And we’re like, no, no no, we value you, we want you here. We are here for you and we will do, we are here to stay and we are going to support you as you transition into life here in the US.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:27] And it is a very difficult time, has it rejuvenated your passion for the work that you do?
Simone Talma [00:21:33] So our work is always about humanity. It’s about our shared humanity. And that’s always our priority. So regardless of what happens, we’ll always be working with refugees. We’ll always working with people who need our support. And that core to who we are.
Jerry Quijano [00:21:56] We have been speaking with Simone Talma-Flowers, the executive director of IACT, that is Interfaith Action of Central Texas. The Hope Awards happening April 28th, that is Tuesday. We’re gonna have a link to more in our podcast, show notes, and at kut.org. Simone, thank you again for talking with us on Austin Signal.
Simone Talma [00:22:13] Thank you so much for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:16] And thank you for spending your Friday here with us. That is it for today’s show and for this week here on Austin Signal. We’re going to have links to the stories we featured today in the podcast show notes, and you can always find more from us at kut.org slash signal. Rayna Sevilla is our technical director. Alexa Hart is our producer and Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. Special thanks to Jake Perlman for his help with today’s show. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. Austin Signal will be back on Monday at one o’clock. We’ll talk to you then. Be safe out there. Have a wonderful weekend.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
