WATER SUPPLY

So far there has been an average of six boil-water notices a day across Texas in 2023.

Officials said the water levels at the local reservoir were too low to meet safety standards.

Rural communities face compounding reasons they can’t improve their water infrastructure, including inflation and a lack of human resources.

For more than 24 hours, nearly everyone in the nation’s fourth-most-populous city had been asked to boil water after a power outage at a water treatment plant Sunday.

Many residents in the nation’s fourth-most-populous city heard that they couldn’t drink tap water from friends or neighbors, not from City Hall.

Millions of Houston residents are expected to be under a boil water notice until Tuesday after a power outage at a water treatment plant. At least four school districts canceled Monday classes.

Zavalla lost all water for several days. The Texas Department of Emergency Management has sent pallets of bottled water and a team to help.

Texas’ biggest single solution to providing enough water for its soaring population in the coming decades is using more surface water, including about two dozen new large reservoirs. But climate change has made damming rivers a riskier bet.

As Texas continues to battle drought, groups are trying a market-based solution to help farmers and protect what little water is left.

Citing water quality concerns, the Environmental Protection Agency may refuse to recognize a permit that Texas approved Thursday for a marine desalination plant at the Port of Corpus Christi.

The declaration covers 23 counties across the state and comes after some saw more than 10 inches of rainfall Monday.

Construction began in July to bring water to Cochran, one of several colonias along the border not served by public water systems. The project is expected to be completed by October.

“We’re on the brink. We’re teetering. It’s a balancing act. It’s a 50/50 proposition,” said Gunter City Manager Rick Chaffin.

Texas had 3,866 water boil notices in 2021, the most in the last decade. Aging water systems threaten water supply and quality — and for many small towns across the state, they won’t be cheap to repair.

The outage left about 165,000 people without water in Odessa and some surrounding areas. It has been attributed to a main line break in the city’s aging water system and comes amid a dayslong heat wave.

Officials haven’t specified what caused the break, but say the broken line is about 60 years old.

Rural Texas communities often don’t have the resources, technical experience, or ability to take on large amounts of debt to pursue state funds for water supply and quality projects. So, many simply don’t apply.

A report from the state climatologist finds that the state is experiencing hotter days with less relief from high temperatures at night.