A local aggregate company has shut down a waterway dredging project, while expanding its plans for a granite gravel mine in another area.
Officials with Collier Materials confirmed that the company has severed ties with the City of Llano in connection with a decade-long dredging operation on the Llano River.
Company Vice President Kevin Collier explained that a breakdown in new contract negotiations dissolved the partnership.
“In the new contract, the city said that they would lower the lake 60-90 days but totally at their discretion, so they might not lower it at all,” Collier told The Highlander. “We just can not write a business model based on that.”
Terms for the contract which just ended included the removal of 50,000 yards of material with Collier compensating the City of Llano at 12 cents per ton.
One component of the work involved dredging in both Robinson Park Lake in Llano County and Town Lake in the heart of Llano. At the same time, the aggregate company operated a sand plant on the north side of the Llano River in the vicinity of Pecan Creek, just outside of the city limits.
Crews trucked materials from the dredging sites to the sand plant to process it.
The sand plant operation will eventually be moved to Voca in Mc-Cullough County near Brady, Collier confirmed.
Llano City Manager Finley deGraffenried offered details about the history of the business deal.
“Collier’s been a good partner of the city for that term of that contract. We’re disappointed that they decided not to renew that contract,” de-Graffenried said. “The contract was amended in 2020 that had some stipulations on it.
“We developed the contract by-and-large the way the previous one was drafted,” he added. “They decided they didn’t want to move forward with it.”
City officials will seek another private-public partnership due to the role dredging filled to increase water storage.
“Dredging is an important part of our water plan to make sure we have capacity in those lakes (Town Lake and Robinson Lake),” deGraffenried said. “We’ll send out an RFQ (request for quotes) for the same or similar type of operation.
"Hopefully, we'll find somebody that it will make sense for,” he added.
The city manager acknowledged the need for lake drawdowns but held firm on conditions that could impact the decision and timing to do so.
“We had some ability to control or work with them for the periods they would have to lower the lake,” deGraffenried said. “We obviously don’t want to lower the lake in the summer when demand is high and we’re in drought conditions.
Despite the contract’s abrupt end, the city manager maintains a positive outlook.
“It is a big piece of our water capacity plan,” he said. “We want to get it done. We’ve had a pretty mild spring. We think we’ll be okay.”
New Ground In another operations pivot, Collier recently purchased 280 acres on CR 120 in Burnet County to launch a new quarry. The company recently applied for a stormwater runoff permit with the Lower Colorado River Authority.
The acreage, northwest of Marble Falls, extends from the 7200 block at the railroad tracks westward to Gregory Lane. The planned mining pit would be located just east of another Collier mining pit as well as around the corner from two other pits, owned by the company, on CR 121.
“The top red material, we’re getting short on that (at the existing pits),” he added. “That’s why we bought this other property.”
Collier says with each business move he makes, he has faced detractors expressing concerns about truck traffic, air quality and the aquifer.
Collier maintains his operations provide critical materials for roads, landscaping and other infrastructure. For those reasons, he exploits opportunities to expand when he can.
“That’s what we do for a living. We sell granite gravel,” Collier said. “We needed more reserves.”
