V. Hugh Lewis II/Jefferson Jimplecute
Several hundred households on the North Shore of Lake O’the Pines spent part of the Christmas weekend without full water service due to freezing temperatures and water main breaks.
Customers in the Mims Water District and Aqua Water Utility Services areas have been under boil notices for the last several days while waiting for repairs to be completed.
Marion County Judge Leward LaFleur posted several videos on his FaceBook page, starting on Christmas Day, addressing the issue.
“We’ve had some major water issues throughout the county,” he said. “Those issues have been conveyed to me and I’ve been on the phone with County Commissioner JR Ashley, and Hunter Bonner, and we are working on those issues. The water issues on the north shore are through completely private entities. Aqua Texas is one entity and Mims Water District is another.
“Mims is diligently working on getting these issues resolved. I’ve discussed the issues with the Texas Department of Emergency Management, and they are getting us water as soon as possible. Water is available for anyone in Marion County who is experiencing water difficulties at the Mims VFD starting at 9 a.m. Monday morning,” he said. “Again, I want to remind everyone these are private companies who control these water districts. They are not controlled by the Commissioners Court, the judge’s office, or the sheriff’s office.“
The County has received cases of water at the Mims VFD from TDEM and Brookshire’s over the last couple of days. It is available for anyone without water to come by and get some.
There are several different Water Service companies operating along the north shore: Mims Water Service Corporation, Monarch Utilities or Southwest or Texas Water Utilities (Holiday Harbor and Indian Hills), Aqua Texas (Crestwood and Johnson’s Creek areas), and the City of Hughes Springs.
Mims and Aqua Texas areas were the most affected by the outages.
“Texas Water Utilities customers in Indian Hills Harbor and Pine Harbor are not currently under a boil water notice. Both systems have normal water pressure. Freezing temperatures overnight can freeze a home’s plumbing, and when water starts to thaw throughout the day, it can take time for water flow to return to normal,” said Terry Benton, VP of Operations East Region at Texas Water Utilities.
Mims Water has been working on resolving the issues as quickly as possible and expected full service to be restored by the end of day on Tuesday.
In a FaceBook post Wednesday afternoon Mims WSC Office Manager Paula Hathcoat said: “The public water system has taken the necessary corrective actions to restore the quality of the water distributed by this public water system used for drinking water or human consumption purposes and has provided TCEQ with laboratory test results that indicate that the water no longer requires boiling prior to use as of 11 a.m. on December 28, 2022.
“We deeply regret any inconveniences this occurrence had caused, especially occurring on the holiday weekend. Unfortunately, extreme cold temperatures can wreak havoc on water systems. Three major line breaks were repaired, and a pressure valve was replaced to restore adequate pressure and supply to the full affected service area. We greatly appreciated the customers’ patience, understanding and cooperation during this time,” she continued.
According to reports, customers were unable to reach Aqua Texas during part of the weekend and first part of the week, to report the outages, citing that when they called the customer service number it would ring and then hang up.
“It is just a fact that we regret any inconvenience that the customers experienced,” said Aqua Texas Communications Representative Brittany Tressler, “We don’t want that to happen again. And we’re actively working on making improvements from a customer service lens based on this, like I think this is causing a lot of utilities to look at their customer service, just the capacity that they can take on because this is happening all over the country. So we’re certainly looking for opportunities to improve our customers experience as well.”
On Tuesday the Jimplecute experienced similar issues in attempting to reach Aqua. However, Aqua established a conference call with the Jimplecute to discuss the issue and provide updates.
“The afternoon of December 24, we did get some calls from Crestwood customers who are experiencing low pressure,” said Daniel Rimann, Aqua Texas Director of Operations. ”We operate a lot of remote systems and this is a remote of the remote. So right took a took a couple hours, or thereabouts for an operator of ours to get out to the system to see what was going on.
“It was large plant that was experiencing the issue with a line frozen between the well pump and the ground storage tank, so we couldn’t get water into the ground storage tank, and that causes the tank to drop and then we’re not no longer pumping water into the system, so we lose pressure from that plant. Now the first plant is still able to operate, but is not able to keep up with system wide demand. So numerous customers, they weren’t out of water, but they were experiencing low pressure. They were experiencing enough low pressure that we are required by TCEQ to issue a boil water notice because we have not been able to maintain the minimum pressure in the system. So we did that. And we weren’t able to get that well line unfrozen, and that plant placed back on service, and then bring the system pressure back up, at which time we had to flush the system, get air out of it and get the sediment out of it. And then take a sample that would enable us to lift the boil water, notice if the sample came back negative. Now again, because that system is so removed. By the time we were able to get that sample and get into a lab that was open and have it run was [Tuesday],” he said. “We should get that result back [Wednesday] and be able to lift the boil notice.”
“So I think it’s important to know that although we’re the major inconvenience to have the loss of pressure, that would not an outage, we’ve had systems, fortunately, around the state and completely lost water. But Crestwood was actually able to be maintained with a low pressure,” Rimann said.
Rimann also stated some of the improvements Aqua is making to improve their customer experience for those that had trouble getting through to them. They include:
- Brought in additional customer service staff to help respond to inquiries given the extremely high volume
- Addressed general inquiries via social media posts and the website – providing helpful tips and updates
- Directed customers to the website to sign up for real-time alerts
- Responded diretl to customer inquiries via email and social media
Hathcoat also posted “If [Mims WSC customers] have questions concerning this matter, you may contact David Oney, General Manager/Operator at 903-601-2746, Paula Hathcoat, Office Manager at 903-601-2155, or Mims Water Supply Corp, 12688 FM 729, Avinger TX 75630-2410; business phone 903-755-3185.”
The Marion County Republican Assembly, led by Hunter Bonner, has held one meeting earlier this month at the Mims Community Center to discuss water issues on the North Shore. Bonner said there is another meeting scheduled for 6:30p.m January 3rd.
Bonner said those interested in discussing the issues are welcome to attend, regardless of political affiliation or which water service one is a customer of.
The Jimplecute will be following this story and the water service issues on the North Shore in a future issue.