South Texas Town’s Water Is as Dirty as Its Politics

The problems of the scandal-ridden town of Crystal City, Texas, were magnified on Wednesday and Thursday as the tap water was running black, brown, muddy, dirty and rusty. The mayor and all but one city council member are currently facing federal corruption charges.

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has been taking water samples, and now says the discoloration was the result of the city’s water tower being flushed out, to the great surprise of the city’s 7,200 residents.

A boil water order still remains in effect for the county seat of Zavala County, rocked over the last few weeks with most of the city council being arrested and facing federal corruption or immigration charges, as reported by Breitbart Texas.  Only Tuesday night, the mayor was arrested again at a city council meeting for “inciting a riot”, and spent the night in jail.

As of noon Friday, the water was running clear coming out of faucets, taps and shower heads across the city. For personal consumption, the experts are telling people to keep boiling their water for at least two minutes until all possible contaminants are out of the system.

City Water Director Carlos Ramirez was the man at the eye of the storm. He posted to the cities Facebook page that the towns elevated water tank was overdue for cleaning and repair, and they flushed it on Wednesday. This caused sediment and rust to run through the entire distribution system. They dispatched crews to open all the fire hydrants to drain the pipes, but people came home to find a murky crud coming from the faucet.

Late on Friday morning, the city’s Facebook page showed pallet loads of bottled water from the city of Carrizo Springs and the San Antonio Water System. They are being distributed to the elderly of Crystal City, and other tanks are being brought in for people who want to fill up jugs or buckets.

Crystal City Schools were let out early on Thursday afternoon because of low water pressure, but classes resumed on Friday, as normal, with the addition of bottled water for all the students.

Rob Milford is a reporter for Breitbart Texas. You can follow him on Twitter.