(Aguas! There’s a then and a now to this story.
Then goes back to the Sept. 2019 Boil Water Notice (BWN) the TCEQ mandated the City to issue to warn of unsafe drinking water being delivered by the City’s water utility department. The City defied the TCEQ order and posted the BWN after a week.
The now includes three recent hearings of the TCEQ Commissioners (May 19, June 9, and June 30, 2021) to discuss and decide what to be done about the City having gone rogue in 2019 to ignore the urgency to warn Laredoans and area residents of unsafe drinking water. Those discussions, now part of the public record of the TCEQ, include public comments and the chastising narratives of the Commissioners. The now also includes a BWN issued July 3, 2021.)
The burning questions — er — perhaps the boiling questions regarding the most recent Boil Water Notice from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ):
- Why is citizen Federico M. Reyes of El Azteca the first to alert Laredoans that there is a Boil Water Notice in their future? Mr. Reyes, a contract welder and the father of four, is not any kind of a water specialist, but he knows well the message of accumulated algae on the filters he has installed at the point that City water enters his home’s water lines.
- Why was the alert not sounded by the City itself or the City’s licensed municipal water delivery professionals who monitor water samples and accumulate data for reports about water quality throughout the City?
The answer is simple. Reyes, recalling his effort to inform the City about the September 2019 issue that led to the BWN the City sat on for a week, called the TCEQ directly on July 2, as he finally did in 2019 when the City failed to respond to his concerns.
On June 30, 2021 Commissioners of the TCEQ wrapped up the third of three hearings regarding the City of Laredo’s sluggish, willful, and safety-threatening September 2019 decision to post a Boil Water Notice (BWN) a week after the TCEQ mandated it.
Surely the City knew from its own data, even as it was being granted the TCEQ’s wrist slap of an Agreed Order for the 2019 debacle, that three days later the City would again be under a BWN.
An Agreed Order allows the City to deny liability and imposes a small fine. According to Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA) attorney Kristen Adams, the City was cited for timely failing to issue the BWN and failing to maintain the Lyons South Ground Storage Tank in proper condition.
“TCEQ Agreed Orders are slam dunk pro formas,” said TRLA attorney Israel Reyna who with Enrique Valdivia works with a team headed by Adams to represent AGUAS!, Accion de Gente Unida para Agua Segura.
AGUAS! founder Carlos Blanco Jr. delivered comments at two of the TCEQ hearings, telling the Commissioners that it is in the old neighborhoods of South Laredo and the colonias in which poor water quality first shows up. “Issuing an Agreed Order is a way for the violator to save face instead of saving the health of people,” he cautioned the Commissioners.
What came to light in the TCEQ hearings of May 19, June 9, and June 30, 2021 is the specter of something gone awry in the City’s delivery of safe drinking water, a specter that has come to roost ultimately in the office of City Manager Robert Eads and in the water utilities department’s failure to deliver clean water to residents of Laredo and some who live in Webb County colonies off Hwy 359.
The decision to act on the matter at the May 19 TCEQ hearing was postponed for several reasons, foremost that the City was represented by an uninformed City attorney with little knowledge of the 2019 BWN or the City’s egregious violations of it.
“Can you provide an explanation of what happened specifically with regard to the late Boiled Water Notice?” Chairman Jon Nierman asked the attorney, David Arredondo Jr. “Our agency advised the City of Laredo that it had a legal obligation to send out the notice, and yet the notice did not go out for more than a week.”
Arredondo said that the TCEQ’s enforcement action predated his employment with the City, and that “My understanding is that there were concerns about test samples that may have been contaminated. I believe we were waiting on test results before the BWN.”
Nierman informed Arredondo that “the City may have sent the wrong person. Candidly, this is a very significant violation. It is troubling that any supplier of public drinking water would wait for more than a week to inform its residents about potentially hazardous drinking water. I think of all we regulate nothing poses a more immediate and acute risk to public health than drinking water that is suspect.”
According to Reyna, “We didn’t get the Findings Order, which would have required the City of Laredo to admit guilt rather than deny liability, but so much of the City’s failure to act responsibly was entered into the public record. The public chastisement of the City by the Commission was eloquent, well-stated, and it called to question in this very important issue whether the City was forthcoming with information and whether it was trustworthy.”
Commissioner Emily Lindley said she never intended for Laredo to become the poster child for “these kinds of issues.” She said she hoped that other municipalities take note “that we take drinking water violations extremely seriously.”
“Commission Chairman Nierman called the City’s handling of the 2019 BWN ‘cavalier,’” said Adams. “That’s a good word to explain that the delivery of safe, clean water was not a priority on the City agenda,” she added.
“Water quality has to become this City’s priority. It should be at the top of the list over expensive projects like the sports complex some Council members are pushing for,” said Federico Reyes. “We are nothing without water, so let’s fix what needs repair. Let’s loop the dead ends in our delivery system so that water can circulate. Let’s loop the dead ends in management from the top down so that this can stop happening. Let’s make sure those who need licenses and training have them. And let’s keep local politics out of that department,” he continued, adding, “Regarding clean water coming into our homes, I do not trust the City. I trust the TCEQ.”
Reyes doesn’t crow about being a whistleblower. He seems not to like the attention he has drawn. He said he doesn’t stray far from the teachings of his father, a World War II veteran. “He told us that hard work will get us to our goals; that if you do not vote, you forfeit the right to complain; and you need to be responsible to your community and do what you can to make a difference,” Reyes said.
“That it took a citizen to bring all this to light begs the question — how is the water utilities department being managed? Has a political culture of management eclipsed a culture of professionalism?” asked attorney Reyna.
“What did Mr. Reyes know that water department employees did not read in their water quality and monitoring reports?” Reyna asked.
(Please see below agenda summaries and links to videos of the three TCEQ hearings, as well as AGUAS! public comments to the TCEQ and attachments.
Agenda summaries courtesy of AGUAS! Accion de Gente Unida para Agua Segura.)
2019 BWN – TCEQ Commissioners’ Agenda Summaries
At the conclusion of its investigation into the 2019 BWN incident, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) cited the City for (1) failing to timely issue the BWN, and (2) failing to maintain the Lyons South Ground Storage Tank in proper condition. TCEQ’s Enforcement Division chose to propose a 1660 Agreed Order, which allows the City to deny liability concerning the violations and imposes a small administrative penalty. AGUAS! submitted a public comment on the proposed Agreed Order expressing its opposition to the order and requesting that TCEQ instead impose a Findings Order, which would require the City to admit guilt rather than deny liability.
On May 19th the proposed Agreed Order went before the TCEQ Commissioner’s for ultimate approval. In our experience, the Commissioners usually defer to the Enforcement Division’s proposed Agreed Orders and, without questions, approve them at the monthly Commissioner Agenda Meetings. However, the Commissioners decided to postpone a final decision on the proposed Agreed Order for several reasons. First, the Commissioners made it clear from the beginning that failing to timely issue a BWN is a serious violation that implicates public health and confidence and were very disheartened by the City’s neglect to send a representative with adequate knowledge of the violations to answer the Commissioners’ questions. Second, AGUAS! founder, Carlos Blanco, Jr., signed up to address the Commission during the meeting to express AGUAS! concerns with the proposed order including the fact that the order allows the City to deny liability even after TCEQ told the City that it was legally obligated to issue a BWN seven days before it was actually issued. Ultimately, the Commission was not comfortable with approving the order and postponed further discussion of the matter until the next agenda meeting. The Commission implored the City to send an representative with knowledge of the events who could answer their questions. You can watch a recording of the May 19th meeting here:
On June 9th, the Commissioners took up the matter again. This time, the City sent qualified representatives to the meeting, but the Commissioners were again unsatisfied with what the City had to say. Basically, the Commissioners weren’t buying the City’s attempt to argue its legal interpretation of when a BWN is required, because in situations like the one that occurred in September 2019, issuing a BWN is a non-discretionary measure required under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The Commissioners also had grave concerns about the City’s lack of honest communication with the public. I addressed the Commissioners on behalf of AGUAS! asserting the group’s position that the proposed Agreed Order does nothing to protect public health and deter future violations and that they should instead impose a Findings Order. The Commission decided to delay approval of the proposed Agreed Order yet again. You can watch a recording of the June 9th meeting here:
At the June 30th meeting, after acknowledging that the City had no discretion or authority to ignore TCEQ’s explicit instructions to issue a BWN in September 2019, the Commissioners ultimately approved the proposed Agreed Order. You can watch a recording of the June 30th meeting here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YNrV8-MKMg. The City of Laredo matter is discussed at various times throughout the video:
20:14 through 23:00 – Carlos’ public statement
52:52 through 60 minutes – TCEQ’s Office of Public Counsel and Commissioners comment on Laredo matter
1:11:50 through 1:13:00– TCEQ Commissioners’ ultimately adopt the Proposed Agreed Order
Thank you, MEG. I hope more Laredoans become aware of the responsible “leadership” they elect.
Thanks to AGUAS, & Meg Guerra & other concerned citizens. What is so hard about keeping our waters clean? We should be striving for excellence, not just meeting acceptable levels for water consumption .