Questions Remain Over Corpus Christi Water Ban

“The bigger issue that people are more concerned with: how could something like this happen?”

By Alexandra HartDecember 20, 2016 12:56 pm

Corpus Christi’s recent water ban is raising questions. The Texas lawmakers, along with other state and federal officials, are investigating the possibility of a chemical leak – and whether it reached the public’s water supply at all.

Matt Woolbright, reporter with the Corpus Christi Caller-Times, says residents are asking a lot of questions, many that don’t have an answer yet.

The public is asking just how much of the chemical got into the water supply and whether the water ban was an overreaction by officials.

“But I think the bigger issue that people are more concerned with: how could something like this happen,” Woolbright says, “where a petroleum-based chemical could potentially get leaked into the water that they drink and give to their children and their pets.”

There is no doubt, according to Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, that a chemical did leak from a mixing tank. But officials are also questioning if the chemical leaked from a private portion of the water piping system owned by Valero into the public water supply.

Residents are also upset about how information about the ban was given to the public, Woolbright says.

“There’s a lot of frustration and angst about the reverse alert system going out late at night,” he says. “I personally have several friends that showered and ate breakfast and drank water like normal because they never got the reverse alert system. They never knew anything about it.”

Post by Beth Cortez-Neavel.