ARANSAS PASS – There’s good news for Aransas Pass residents who’ve been under a water boil advisory for the past week.
City crews Wednesday finally found the leak in the water lines which led to that advisory. That leak has since been fixed. The discovery capped a nearly week-long search.
“As I got five feet, teen feet from the hole, you started smelling chlorine,” said city worker Jamie Gonzalez. “I started looking around more and I saw a little churning going on there.”
Gonzalez also lives in Aransas Pass, and has had to boil his water since last Wednesday when the broken pipe caused water pressure to drop across Aransas Pass.
“It’s been very frustrating, especially when you’re trying to shower and you’ve got no pressure,” said Goi. It’s annoying, but I’m glad we found it.”
When they found the leak crews were running out of options. A valve installed Tuesday provided the break crews needed to find the broken pipe.
“Once they found it, we could see why it was so difficult,” said Aransas Pass City Manager Gary Edwards. “That was one of the reasons, the water was shooting down into the water table, not going up where it would have been easier to see.”
Now everyone is waiting on the results of water quality tests. If everything checks out, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality will lift the advisory.
“We’re hoping that it’ll be done by Thursday and we’ll be able to lift it at that point,” said Edwards. “That’s my guess; we have to work with other people’s timelines also.”
The City of Aransas Pass is on the hook for paying for the water that was wasted in the leak. Officials don’t know how much water that was, or how much it’s going to cost. They do say they will not be passing it along to customers in the form of a rate increase.
