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Lake Pflugerville’s water levels remain low after a series of waterline breaks, the most recent of which was fixed on Wednesday. Local officials have issued water conservation calls while the man-made lake gets back to normal levels. We’ll have more about those water issues.
Libraries are havens for many Texans, especially those living in rural areas, further away from resources like healthcare. That’s part of the reason one nonprofit is now providing mental health resources in some Central Texas libraries. We’ll dig into the work they’re doing.
And it’ll be a busy weekend for Austin sports fans. The Texas men’s and women’s basketball teams will be in action as Austin FC prepares for a home clash with a familiar foe.
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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 [00:00:08] Lake Pflugerville’s water levels remain low after a series of water line breaks, the most recent of which was fixed on Wednesday. Local officials have issued water conservation calls while the man-made lake gets back to normal levels. We’re going to have more about those water issues coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:25] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:30] Libraries are havens for many Texans, especially those living in rural areas further away from resources like health care. It’s part of the reason one nonprofit is now providing mental health resources in some central Texas libraries. Come hear about the work they’re doing and it’s gonna be a busy weekend for Austin sports fans, Texas men’s and women’s basketball. Plus Austin FC prepares for a home clash with the familiar foe. We’ve got all of that coming up next here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, you are tuned in to Austin Signal. Thank you for spending part of your Friday here with us. It’s March 20th. I’m your host, Jerry Kehannel. Thank you tuning in to Community Powered Public Radio. Water is flowing into Lake Pflugerville again after another water line break was addressed this week. It’s the fifth such break in the water line over the past seven months, and as a result, water levels in the lake remain seriously depleted. For more about this story, we are joined by Katie McAfee. She’s KUT’s Travis County reporter, and she’s been following this story. Hiya, Katie.
Katy McAfee [00:01:45] Hey Jerry, thanks for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:01:46] So let’s talk about this water line. This most recent one was the fifth one. What happened with the four that came before this one?
Katy McAfee [00:01:53] Yeah, so the first break started in September of 2025. So this has kind of been going on for a while.
Jerry Quijano [00:01:59] Mm-hmm.
Katy McAfee [00:02:00] Um, that break was, according to city officials, relatively simple to fix. They fixed that one. Things are kind of going back to normal. Then break two happens a few months later in November. Same situation, relatively easy to fix fast forward to January. There’s a third break once again, relatively to fix
Jerry Quijano [00:02:25] Okay, I’ve seen a pattern.
Katy McAfee [00:02:27] Yes, until a fourth break happens in February, and this is where things really take a turn.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:34] OK, and what happened with that one?
Katy McAfee [00:02:36] So, February 6th, the city realizes that there is another main break in their waterline. And this break is not easy to find at all. It takes them more than 10 days to locate where this break is because it turns out it’s 20 feet below ground. They have to get divers involved. They have to excavate. And once they find the break, it’s also difficult for them to repair. And it took them another couple weeks before they were able to install a bypass line. So water was flowing back into Lake Pflugerville. And by that time, hundreds of millions of gallons of water were lost in the lake.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:16] So it sounds like the fourth one was the most severe one until this fifth one or what was the status of this fifth?
Katy McAfee [00:03:23] Yeah, that’s right. So the fifth break happened on Tuesday. City officials said that was kind of like the first three, relatively simple to find and easily accessible and they had finished that one by Wednesday evening.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:36] Okay, for our listener who might not be familiar with Lake Flugerville, how do they get water there?
Katy McAfee [00:03:41] So Lake Pflugerville is a man-made lake and the water that’s in there, it was made to be a reservoir. People do recreational stuff there now, but it is primarily a reservoir and the Water that is in that lake is entirely from the Colorado River. So they have this, you know, big long pipe that pumps water from the Colorado River all the way to Lake Pflugerville. And because it’s human made, it doesn’t like water won’t flow into it when there’s a lot of rainfall or anything like that. Like it’s.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:10] Just though it’s just the rain that’s gonna fall directly on top of it. Yeah, exactly. Mm-hmm that water that is in Lake, Pflugerville who uses that water?
Katy McAfee [00:04:18] Yeah, so most of the city of Pflugerville is using water from Lake Pfluggerville.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:23] And most of the city then is facing some sort of water restrictions that have been put in place. What is the status there?
Katy McAfee [00:04:30] Yeah, that’s right. So since hundreds of millions of gallons of water were lost, kind of what happened was after the fourth break, the city realized that they had lost a lot of water. At first, they didn’t realize how bad the situation was. So on March 1st, they said, hey, we’re just going to move to stage one water restrictions, which limits customers to outdoor watering one day week. Then they got a report back and realized how significant the water loss was and on March 4th, they were like, hey guys, we need to move all the way to stage three, which is way more restrictive. So under stage three restrictions, customers are not allowed to water outside at all. The only exception is to water the foundation of someone’s home to prevent cracking. And they’re also beyond that asking that people conserve water in other ways. They’re asking people do less cycles of laundry, less cycles running the dishwasher a little bit less, taking shorter showers, even collecting rainwater or collecting water used after washing your hands, things like that. So pretty restrictive, and these are going to stay in place for probably a while because they have so much water to recover. Right now the lake is at 17 feet deep And city officials say they have to keep these stage three restrictions until the lake gets to 19 feet deep I know that’s only that’s, only two feet. So it doesn’t sound
Jerry Quijano [00:05:59] Seemed like a lie, yeah?
Katy McAfee [00:06:00] It might not seem like a lot, but it accounts for, you know, hundreds of millions of gallons of water and city officials estimate that it could take two months ish, but really just depends on how well the city conserves that water.
Jerry Quijano [00:06:14] This is the fifth water line break in about seven months. Is there a reason these keep happening?
Katy McAfee [00:06:19] Right now, I don’t know. When I was reporting this story, the city didn’t open up interviews for any reporters because they said all hands are on deck. Everyone’s completely focused on handling the water situation right now. But there is a lot of questions that we haven’t answered that I want to keep pursuing. I haven’t talked with an engineer who can walk me through why breaks one through five happened, if the system is still vulnerable to more breaks. But those are things that I definitely am looking forward to talking to some experts about and doing another story on
Jerry Quijano [00:06:50] All right, that is KUT’s Katie McAfee. She is our Travis County reporter. We’re gonna have a link to her story in today’s show notes and at kut.org slash signal. Katie, thanks for coming back. As you drive beyond Austin into the rural areas of central Texas, access to health care can be sparse, and that includes mental health support. That’s why a local nonprofit had the idea to place mental health resources in a trusted community center that many rural folks can already access for free. That’s the library. KUT’s Olivia Aldridge reports from Smithville.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:07:32] Okay, take an inhale and exhale here.
Olivia Aldridge [00:07:38] It’s just a regular Wednesday at the Smithville Public Library, and that means there’s a lot going on. In the back room, around a dozen women, some fairly young, some well into their golden years, are gathered on folding chairs, stretching their arms and legs into careful poses.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:07:54] Hold it here with your hands or you can just choose to just let it hang right there
Olivia Aldridge [00:08:03] Cheryl McNeil says it was a game-changer when the library started offering these free chair yoga classes. She would have had to drive to Bastrop for something like this before. It’s really good. I just needed to get moving and stretching and I hadn’t been doing all that, so. There’s a second group of women sitting behind the yogis, knitting hats for local veterans who are going through chemo. A yogi waves goodbye to them after class.
Yogi [00:08:28] Bye, Nate Witts. See y’all later.
Olivia Aldridge [00:08:31] That’s nitwits with a K. Library director, Judy Bergeron, says there’s a good reason why the groups meet in the same room.
Judy Bergeron [00:08:39] We have noticed that when we’re doing the leg stretches and stuff like that with the chair yoga, their legs are moving under the table, so.
Olivia Aldridge [00:08:47] It’s kind of fun. The class is part of programming she’s introduced for what’s called the Libraries for Health Initiative. Smithville is one of eight Central Texas libraries receiving funding from the St. David’s Foundation, aimed at boosting mental health support in their communities. Abinah Asante, a senior program officer at the foundation, says the idea came after a community health needs assessment showed there was insufficient mental health support across the five Central Texas counties the organization covers.
Abinah Asante [00:09:16] Thinking about how do we respond to this persistent gap here in central Texas, we started looking at the assets within our region and libraries was one of the assets that came up again and again.
Olivia Aldridge [00:09:31] Most communities already have libraries and rely on them, not just for books, but for all kinds of resources. That’s certainly true in Smithville. Bergeron says for some people, it’s the only place they have access to computers and the internet.
Judy Bergeron [00:09:45] It’s not just coming in to use the computer, but it’s coming in because I have to fill out a critical social security benefits form, and I don’t know how to do it, and how can I get help?
Olivia Aldridge [00:09:57] Also veterans unsure how to access their benefits, people looking for help recovering from addiction, and unhoused people looking a space to cool off. Library staff just aren’t always equipped with the time or training to help. That’s where Libraries for Health comes in. The St. David’s Foundation gave grants to libraries from Smithville to Martindale to San Marcos, allowing them flexibility to fund what they think will be most helpful. But they also provided funding for a peer support specialist. Someone with lived experience who can talk patrons through mental health challenges and help them find resources. In Smithville, that’s Brittany Khan Flores. She says she has experience with addiction and mental health challenge that helps her to identify with library patrons and build trust.
Brittany Khan Flores [00:10:45] Tell a story or hey just share you know what when I was in that situation this is what I did I’m not I can’t say it’ll work for you but you know it’s a possibility if you like to try it you know we can maybe strategize on how to get you there.
Olivia Aldridge [00:10:59] Up north at the library in Gerald, there are currently two peer support specialists who work with different groups that make up key portions of the growing Gerald community. Susan Gregorick is the library’s chief academic advisor.
Susan Gregorick [00:11:09] Director. One works with young families and parenting and parents who have children with disabilities and the other works with more of the senior citizens.
Olivia Aldridge [00:11:23] That second specialist also works with an American Sign Language group, a veterans group, and groups on grief, anxiety, and depression. Gregorick says they’ve dramatically expanded what the library is able to do. And she doesn’t want to let them go after funding from the foundation wraps up at the end.
Susan Gregorick [00:11:39] Of the year. I hate to use the word desperately, but we are desperately seeking funding to keep both of our peer support specialists after 2026. They both are very good at the jobs they’re doing right now.
Olivia Aldridge [00:11:55] Some libraries, like Gerald’s, are looking for additional grant funding. Others are trying to get funding from their cities or counties to establish a permanent, sustainable mental health support program. Meanwhile, the St. David’s Foundation is trying to spread the word about Libraries for Health beyond Central Texas. They say a public toolkit for the program posted online has already been downloaded over 1,000 times. I’m Olivia Aldridge in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:22] And this is Austin Signal, thank you for tuning in, we’ll be back after a break. This is Austin Signal, welcome back. A new episode of Vamos Verde just dropped and this week the crew tries to figure out how they’re gonna get to this year’s World Cup. Host Jimmy Moss and Juan Diego Garcia interviewed the co-creator of the World Cup Guide, Jason Daly, who’s been to every World Cup since 2006.
Jimmy Mass [00:12:52] What made you create the World Cup guide?
Jason Daley [00:12:55] It’s a great question. It’s one I get asked all the time. I’ve been obsessed with the World Cup since I first saw it in 1994 as a kid. It blew my mind that soccer had such a vast global appeal and seeing people in airports, etc. It left a massive mark. And then in 98, I was older and spent the summer just going from house to house with friends watching. Every match and playing in between. It was one of the best summers ever. I thought I have to get there at some point. 2002 just seemed like an impossible task and then I went in 2006 with a friend and mentor who kind of gave me some guidance of like it seems impossible but what does it take? Probably just saving. So put together all my money. That I could and saved over a few years went. And from that moment on, I thought I have to do this every year. I loved it. And then come 2014, I started answering questions from friends, friends of friends. Hey, how does this work? How do we do it? And I kept repeating myself over and over. So after 2014, I thought to myself, I’m writing all this research down anyways, and I’m just sending the people. Let’s make a website and try to consolidate all this information so anybody can reference it. So that’s how it started.
Jimmy Mass [00:14:30] It’s not a fair comparison because it was 32 years ago. But the last time that, you know, the U S hosted the world cup prices were. 10% of what prices are now. Is that fair? Uh, I mean, well, this is not, this straight dollars, not adjusted as far as I know.
Jason Daley [00:14:50] Well, yeah, no, it’s interesting you asked. So I took it upon myself a couple of years ago. So some of the frustration and reason why I have the site and what it evolved into is like all the information disappears. So you can’t go easily and just look up, hey, how much were tickets in 2014? Right. And so I’ve just been kind of a nerd, just been documenting this information. And then I thought, I wonder how far I can go back. And I was mostly curious all the way to 94. So a couple of years ago, I was doing some digging and pulled up a bunch of references and articles. So there’s an article on the site that has tickets since 94 with all the references I found online. And I have two images. One, just straight dollars. And then two, if you account for an inflation, I think it was based on the consumer price index of December, 2025.
Jimmy Mass [00:15:48] That’s fair Connell, a lot of the more recent inflation, and that would be correct, yeah.
Jason Daley [00:15:53] Correct. Because it was very frustrating for people to be like, oh, supply-demand. It’s just like, well, it’s kind of a lottery and then phases and then people will say, oh inflation is like, it won’t stop that much.
Jimmy Mass [00:16:03] No. Yeah. Inflation was actually quite flat for many, many, many years until recently. So, yeah.
Jason Daley [00:16:08] So I’ll just list the price of 94 for like a standard group stage game. Uh, your categories, cause there’s three categories of tickets. If you want to dive further into knowing those details, but the cheapest category, uh, was $25. Then it was 45 and then 65 and 94. Um, and from the consumer price index, I ran at the end of the year, those would equate to $55, $99 and $142. What I did is since it’s dynamic for the 2026 prices, what I did here to give like an idea is I took the latest price. So your phase three that just finished a couple of weeks ago, and then I took the average of all the group stage prices to come up with this price, just to have a one price comparison.
Jimmy Mass [00:17:00] Yeah, you need a ballpark especially these days with resale and all that. It’s hard to really pinpoint
Jason Daley [00:17:06] So you went from considering inflation in 94 from 55 to $201 for the cheapest, $99 to 433 and then $142 to 563 for your average phase three FIFA supply ticket price, considering inflation from 94 to 2026.
Jimmy Mass [00:17:30] That is, um, that’s massive. And that’s not going to be cheap for, I mean, you’re not just going by yourself. You’re going to go with other people. And, you know, so you got to, someone’s got to front that money.
Juan Diego Garcia [00:17:43] Like I would brace myself for $140 ticket at, you know, maybe something above what, like an MLS going to see an MMS team in most like, like if they would, were to bring, I don’t know, the U S men’s national team to the, the Toyota center out in Houston or no, not that the energy stadium out in Houston for like a showcase or maybe like a qualifying match or something. $142 seems like… Something I could see myself paying for something like that.
Jimmy Mass [00:18:14] Yes, it, but there’s also now there’s the added that’s.
Juan Diego Garcia [00:18:21] This is your face value. That’s not right master. Yeah
Jimmy Mass [00:18:24] Yeah, like adding fees and for a seat geek or any of that stuff that yeah
Juan Diego Garcia [00:18:29] There’s concerts that I would go to that I’d pay 142 bucks for a ticket.
Jimmy Mass [00:18:33] Yes. Would you go see two random countries that you have no connection to? That’s a good question.
Jason Daley [00:18:39] I always have fun because people never realize how relatively affordable a World Cup typically is for a fan trying to go to get tickets. And I love asking Americans like, Hey, why don’t you guess how much this ticket is? And I’m looking at the prices and history and I even have my tickets here from 2022 to reference but you know I I was given a first row seat to Brazil versus Switzerland in 2022. In today’s dollars, I paid $75 for that ticket. Yeah, yeah now you can’t get that ticket for you know, if we’re using this $563, yeah
Jimmy Mass [00:19:28] And that’s, is that, are we isolating that too, just because of where it’s being held or is that because of, where the sport is moving in general?
Jason Daley [00:19:41] I think it’s both, sadly. Yeah, this hobby that I’ve had for my life could be ending after this one if FIFA continues to price tickets at this level. It just starts to get to a point where if you’re going to bring someone with you or your family, you’re just like, I don’t know if this is worth it anymore.
Jimmy Mass [00:20:03] Plus you were saying how you you save up over four years if we’re talking Multiple thousands of dollars to go to on this kind of trip now. You have to save up even longer or put more more. Yeah
Jason Daley [00:20:17] And it’s like, you know, in the U S it’s not like you get much time off. So, uh, is this when you know you and your spouse decide, Hey, we’re both going to take off time for work. We’re going to pick the kids. Is this like, are we getting the value for the money with the kids? Um, if you’re going have to be paying like 500 plus, uh a ticket for everyone to go to a match.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:40] And that is just the cost of tickets. And just a taste of what’s in the latest episode, Jason also talks about hotels and travel, all other kinds of considerations. And we even hear how Stephanie Federico, editor of KUT’s Art Beat, found herself at a World Cup game in Boston. We’re gonna have a link to the full episode in today’s show notes and at kut.org slash signal. The Texas men’s basketball team are in their second win of this year’s NCAA tournament last night, beating the BYU Cougars. The Longhorns advance to the round of 32, setting up a Saturday night matchup against the three-seeded Gonzaga. Texas has defeated the Wolf Pack, the Cougers, and now they go up against the Bulldogs. Tip-off tomorrow night is scheduled for a few minutes past 6 o’clock local time. And action in the women’s tournament tipped off today and it’s happening right down the street from us here at the Moody Center. Oregon has an early lead on Virginia Tech and that game will be followed up by the one seeded Texas Longhorns taking on Missouri State. The Longhors have lots of postseason experience on this year’s roster thanks to players like fifth year senior Rory Harmon. Let’s hear from her.
Rory Harmon [00:21:58] In the back of my head, I do think about how it is my last run. But I try not to put too much emotions about that part, it being the last. You just wanna be in the moment, don’t get tied up in too much emotion. Just play like it is, understand I don’t have another opportunity to do it. But I just wanna stay in the moments where my feet are at and enjoy my time with my teammates.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:21] The Longhorns and the Lady Bears are scheduled to tip off this afternoon at 3 o’clock. The winners of today’s game will be back at the Moody Center on Sunday to play for a spot in the Sweet 16. That about does it for us today and this week here on Austin Signal, thank you so much for making us part of your every day here in Austin. We appreciate you tuning in. Thank you to our crew, Rayna Sevilla is our technical director and Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer. I’m your host Jerry Quijano, have a lovely weekend, we will talk to you on Monday.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
