Kerrville officials keep promise, repair Mount Wesley water damage

By Claudia M. Williams
Staff Writer
Kerrville officials have made good on a promise to repair water damage at Mount Wesley Conference Center.
“In fact,” said Patti Zaiontz, interim Mount Wesley administrator, “the city has made it better than before.”
Six weeks of runoff from the city’s Hilltop water tower washed out trails and caused other damage around the 68-acre facility.
Representatives of the Kerrville public works and water departments had said the city would restore the United Methodist property to the way it was before the discharge started Sept. 24.
City officials had drained the 1-million-gallon water tank to prepare for painting. They soon discovered that many water customers would lose pressure without water being pumped continuously into the system.
Assistant Wastewater Manager Laurence Stufflet told the Kerrville Daily Times Oct. 22 the system needed a safety bleed off to protect water mains from excessive pressure, and the bleed off happens at the water tower.
Water from that bleed off flowed down from Hilltop, where the Bolivian cross stands, and caused damage to Mount Wesley facilities and the swimming pool.
The flow swept away the bark on Mount Wesley’s nature trails and washed out the Joshua Prayer Garden.
Repairs were completed in December, but not until city officials found a solution to a problem they encountered repaving the trails.
“The city didn’t have access to the amount of bark required,” Zaiontz said. “They offered to replace the bark with crushed granite.”
The granite is considerably more costly than bark, she said. But the city paid the tab.
“Granite is much better than the bark,” Zaiontz said. “It’s more durable.”