In booming West Texas, a growing community struggles to access running water

More and more people are flocking to Texas — making it one of the fastest growing states in the country. The population explosion also means an increase in the demand for water.

Take West Odessa — many residents don’t have running water and this is in a region where the multi-billion dollar oil industry is booming. But figuring out how to pay for new infrastructure to get water lines where they need to be is a big problem.

Driving through a West Odessa neighborhood, Catarina Tavarez points out bulky water tanks sitting alongside most of the homes and RVs.

“There’s a black tank right here. They’ve got a green tank right there,” she said. “RV place with three tanks.”

Residents store water in these large containers because otherwise they don’t have a reliable source. West Odessa is an unincorporated community that local leaders believe has around 50,000 residents, and in recent years, the West Texas community has been growing fast.

Many people came here for cheap land and few regulations. It’s a place you might see a small ranch in the middle of a residential neighborhood, work yards filled with oil drilling equipment or mobile homes packed tightly on a single lot.

“This is West Odessa, you’ll have a beautiful home and then the most random mobile homes falling apart,” Tavarez said.

As more people have moved here, the community has expanded beyond existing water lines. Hence the tanks. Which can take a ton of time and money to fill with thousands of gallons of water.

Pulling up to her neighbors house, Tavarez tells me how they haul water.

“They’ll have their flatbed, they’ll have different kinds of tanks,” she said. “They’ll go out anywhere where they can find it less expensive and she told me it takes her about two to three hours per week to haul water.”

Tavarez is part of a group called the West Odessa Water Warriors, which is trying to get more residents connected to the local water utility. Patti Kappauf founded the group last year and according to her it has not been easy.

She said, “You’d think prolific oil fields, right. We would have money — but we don’t and, you know, this population just got out of control.”

A big part of the problem is some parts of West Odessa have access to running water, while large swaths just don’t. The local water system is run by the Ector County Utility District, which doesn’t have the millions of dollars needed to run water lines to the far corners of West Odessa.

Darrell Pando, who was recently elected to the board of the utility district, is kept up at night by how difficult it is going to be to get running water to more West Odessans.

“The main issue is 99% of the people that are asking for water, are outside the district, so there’s no infrastructure out there whatsoever,” he said.

More people are going to have to pay the district if they are going to be able to expand water infrastructure, which has sparked some difficult conversations.

Pando recalled a citizen telling him, “Darrell, you mean to tell me that I probably won’t be alive by the time you get me water?’ I said ‘I might not even be alive.’ I said, ‘It might not be my kids, it might be my grandkids finishing this up.’”

There are some projects in the works that will expand access to clean and running water, according to Pando, but nothing that will fix the problems at the scale that’s necessary.

Across Texas, communities are worried about running out of water as more people move in. Lawmakers are talking about investing more in water projects. But people out here in West Odessa, like Catarina Tavarez, feel abandoned. 

“It’s not an issue for them, it’s not a priority for them,” Tavarez said.

She pointed out that it’s not always about expanding lines to new developments. In some cases old water wells have dried up, which is what happened to her.

“Running water is a basic need.  I mean this should not be a problem right now,” she said. “It should have been fixed years ago.”

For now, Tavarez and her neighbors will keep filling their water containers wherever they can to keep their faucets running.