The Lorena Utility Department noticed a leak in the downtown water tower on October 14.
"We're just losing water the entire time," Lorena City Council said. "It's leaking, and it's just going to get worse," Lorena City Council said.
"We just all of a sudden came up, and well two and the downtown tower decided to start leaking out of the top of the tower and the bottom of the well," Lorena City Council said.
They said the well and tower work together to supply residents with water. The city says it could impact the community's water pressure if left unaddressed.
The city started making repair plans at a recent city council meeting, agreeing to hire Maguire Water to do the job for more than $20,000.
Maguire began working on the tower on Wednesday to limit the water lost and avoid being fined by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ.
In a statement, the TCEQ says it performs routine checks to determine whether water systems can sustain drinking water. The agency tells me these are proactive steps to identify areas of deficiency in local water systems.
The TCEQ conducts routine comprehensive compliance investigations (ccis), also called sanitary surveys, to determine a public water system's capacity to deliver drinking water on a sustainable basis and adherence to rule requirements. Ccis are conducted to identify and correct water facilities' physical and operational weaknesses. Ccis are a proactive public health measure that can identify deficiencies in public water systems. Ccis are performed every three years on community water systems and every five years for non-community water systems in texas.
The city said the water towers struggled to retain water during COVID-19, which caused this to happen.
"I believe that a lot of this has to do with the stress that was caused by not being able to keep water in our towers during that event," Lorena City Council said.
The city says these repairs should be able to help resolve any issues we have faced.
"They're prolonging the life of both of those sites and because of the amount, we're proposing to use the capital project fund instead of just repair and maintenance," Lorena City Council said.
