6 hours Ago
Around 50 families, a church, an equestrian center and others outside Valley Mills have been without running water for a week, and it remains unclear when their taps will run again. SRC Water Supply Inc., the privately owned water supply company at supplies the area, has failed to pay for needed repairs, a local pump repair company official said during a public meeting Sunday.
Customers said drinking water has not run since Oct. 15 to a few dozen homes and others near the intersection of Wolf Lane and Highway 6 in western McLennan County, just outside Valley Mills. Customers said they did not receive proper notice from SRC before their taps ran dry.
Until the service is restored, the city of Valley Mills is offering to fill water containers from its own water system for customers of the SRC system to take home. McLennan County emergency management officials also are working with H-E-B to have bottled water delivered, McLennan County Commissioner Ben Perry said Monday evening. SRC has the exclusive right and the obligation to provide retail water service to the small area southeast Valley Mills, under a certificate of convenience and necessity issued by the Public Utility Commission of Texas.
"It looks like SRC is just going to walk away from that small water system, which is quite confusing and very frustrating to me," Perry said by phone. "It is my understanding that TCEQ (the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) has launched an investigation of the situation and they will take their findings to the Public Utility Commission. The PUC could then put this water system into some kind of receivership.
The county does not have statutory authority or expertise to do anything for the water system there." A pump SRC operates is out of commission, said John Klepper, vice president with Jurgensen Pump LLC of McGregor, during Sunday's public meeting. The gathering took place at Top Hand Cowboy Church on Highway 6 outside Valley Mills, one of the customers without water.
Jurgensen Pump last replaced the pump for SRC in 2022 and has only received one partial payment for the work, Klepper said. He estimated SRC is about $15,000 behind in payments to Jurgensen Pump. "As a company we made the decision not to do any more work on this well until we're paid what we're owed," Klepper said.
He said the pump in question should last a long time and there could be a range of reasons it failed after just two years. Klepper said the pump in the well is not quite large enough for the number of connections on the water system. He also said the pump does not have proper electrical protections from current fluctuations in the power grid.
Shorts circuits in wiring or damage to the well casing also could cause a pump failure. TCEQ records list citations for SRC-operated water systems in the Dallas-Fort Worth Area, Houston area, Corpus Christi area and the system near Valley Mills. For the system near Valley Mills, SRC has a notice of nonpayment of annual public health fees and regulatory assessments from TCEQ at least from 2018 through 2021.
TCEQ also cited the system for lack of appropriate disinfectant residual in the water and failure to maintain sufficient water pressure in the system. Two phone lines listed for SRC with the Texas Comptroller's records of taxable entities rang disconnected Monday. A TCEQ spokesperson did not provide answers Monday to questions submitted by email about the agency's response to the situation.
Valley Mills City Secretary Christy Whiteway said the city council without hesitation gave emergency approval to provide Valley Mills water to SRC customers. "They have to show us a water bill from SRC in that area and a drivers license and bring their own container," Whiteway said. Valley Mills will provide water to affected SRC customers in amounts of a few gallons up to several hundred gallons, if they bring the containers, she said.
As of Monday afternoon, two families and the equestrian center had gotten water from the city, Whiteway said. Here's the latest for Monday, Oct. 21st: Houston helicopter crash kills four; Trump campaigns in North Carolina; Harris campaigns in Pennsylvania; Jury selection in New York subway chokehold death.
Get local news delivered to your inbox! Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items..
