Boil Water Advisories On The Rise In Corpus Christi

Clean drinking water has been hard to come by for the people of Corpus Christi, TX. The Texas Gulf Coast city has issued three orders in less than a year urging its residents to boil their water to ensure that it is safe to drink.

Like many cities in the U.S., Corpus Christi is one of many communities in the country attempting to deal with aging infrastructure.

“We’re talking about supplying water in the year 2016, and we’re having these problems over and over again,” local resident Rene Vela said, per the Denton Record-Chronicle. “It’s starting to affect my family, my employees and I’m sure the rest of the city. It’s ridiculous.”

The issues of safe drinking water and aging infrastructure gained national attention in recent months since to the crisis in Flint, MI. Since then, various testing for contaminants such as lead has been on the rise, especially in schools.

Greg DiLoreto, past president of the American Society of Civil Engineers, said an additional $105 billion must be spent to modernize water and wastewater treatment facilities, according to the Denton Record-Chronicle.

“If you want fewer incidents and you want quality water, you’re going to have to increase water rates,” DiLoreto told the Denton Record-Chronicle. “We’re not understanding the true cost of operating, maintaining and replacing a full water utility.”

DiLoreto added that while the increase in boil-water notices in many states reflected problems with failing public utility systems, “new rules and greater transparency” in notifying the public when water quality may be undermined is imperative.

There are many reasons a city’s water quality can be compromised, among them broken water mains, loss of pressure, high bacteria levels, and weather-related causes.

The city’s latest advisory, which ended late last month, was largely a precautionary measure taken after nitrogen-rich runoff from rain flowed into the water system, the Denton Record-Chronicle reported.

Corpus Christi typically receives about 10 inches of rain by this time of year, but 2016 has been unusually wet with more than 18 inches, according to the National Weather Service.

To read more about informing ratepayers of water issues visit Water Online’s Consumer Outreach Solutions Center.