Enviro groups file suit to stop plant

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Two environmental groups and a UT professor filed a lawsuit Thursday in the hopes it would stop the city from moving forward on the proposed water treatment plant.

Save Our Springs Alliance and Environment Texas, as well as UT biology professor Dr. Mark Kirkpatrick filed suit against the city of Austin, U.S. Secretary of the interior Ken Salazar, and the U.S. Fish and WIldlife Service. 

The suit complains that the defendants are violating the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) by not performing required environmental tests before moving forward with construction of water treatment plant #4.  The suit alleges that moving forward with the plant will threaten habitats and an endangered species.

The proposed plant will go in northwest Austin at the corner of FM 620 and Bullick Hollow Road where 92-acres were purchased using bond money from 1984.

One issue for the environmental groups is the plant's threat to the habitat of the endangered Jollyville Plateau Salamander . Negotiations continue for the protection of the salamander.