Imagine living in a home with no water. That means no drinking water,you can't take a shower, flush the toilet, do the dishes, and the list goes on. Believe it or not residents living in the Coronado Acres Community have been doing just that. The community sits on the Deaf Smith/Castro county line. The 62 households in that community haven't had running water for more than 6 months.
According to the Hereford Brand, Jill Lopez, mobilized her neighbors into forming a non-profit water utility. But that even in a best-case scenario its still at least a full year from providing water to the community. Lopez says, not a drop of water has flowed from a Coronado Acres water tap since December, but even before that, residents had sub-par water service for decades.
If living without running water wasn't bad enough the area is also lacking a sewage system. Many residents have been disposing of human waste in open pits, said Lopez. She went on to say, area residents are talking about building a private sewer treatment system in the future, but getting safe drinking water to the homes is the top priority.
Residents in the community have been forced to drive to Hereford or Dimmit to purchase water and truck it back to their homes. Lopez and the families living in the area formed Skywater Water Supply Corporation last October and immediately began seeking a solution.
On Tuesday at a public hearing in Hereford, Clyde H. Jenkins of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Rural Development agency said Skywater had received preliminary approval for a loan/grant funding package. That funding will finance a private water system with a preliminary price tag of $1,074,000.
Skywater has also retained a Lubbock-based engineering firm, EHT, to design and build a water delivery system that will serve the community.
