Odessa residents face another water outage

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Tens of thousands of Odessa residents were once again without water on Saturday afternoon as crews worked to fix a leak in the waterline — an ongoing problem in the city’s aging infrastructure.

Crews in the fast-growing city at the center of the Permian Basin were not able to isolate a leak discovered Saturday morning. City manager John Beckmeyer said faulty valves forced workers to shut down the entire system to make repairs. The city’s aging 700-mile-long system has seen recurring problems and it is due for a major overhaul, he said.

After a much larger leak led to a water outage in May, Mayor Javier Joven said that a majority of county residents outside city limits also rely on the city’s water plant.

The city sent out a public safety alert around noon notifying city residents the water would be shut off at 2 p.m. Beckmeyer said estimated residents would be without water for three hours, and under a 24-hour, boil-water notice after it comes back.

The city notified residents at 5:30 p.m. Saturday that the line break had been repaired and that service would slowly resume. A Sunday morning alert from the city said water was flowing again and that all residents could expect to have water by mid-morning.

The city warned residents to boil tap water before using it until further notice. Typically, it takes about 24 to 36 hours for such boil-water notices to lift. During that time, water samples are tested for safety.

Breckmeyer said Odessa eliminated a crew that regularly checked valves about a decade ago as a cost saving measure.

The city now has standard operating procedures to limit the time water is shut off when leaks cannot be isolated with the goal of preventing dayslong water outages like in 2022. Odessa also started notifying residents about water problems with cellphone alerts after many were surprised by May’s outage.

Beckmeyer says the city is working on fixing the valves, but contracted repairs will take time and they won’t be cheap. The city applied for support from a new $1 billion statewide water fund that was approved by constitutional amendment voters in November.

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