Boil water notice impacts ranchers in Laredo

LAREDO, Tex. (KGNS) - Another group impacted by the boil water notice is those who live outside the city limit and depend on getting water within Laredo.

From washing their dishes, watering their plants and keeping their animals hydrated, ranchers rely heavily on water sources.

Local rancher, Ron Jones, mentioned, "I have my family out here, we couldn't flush our toilets, water out our animals or whatever we had going on out here, so I was a little bit dismayed about it."

Jones relies heavily on the water from the nearby pumps on Highway 59 and Highway 359.

Jones added that after seeing the pumps closed, he immediately called the Webb County Commissioner's Office to see what was going on, and to his surprise, nobody knew what he was referring to.

Jones noted, "It was a lot of finger-pointing, like 'No- the city did it, no, the county did it,' but they did try to settle our nerves and start making phone calls."

Jones said although the problem got fixed fairly quickly, he and his family were still upset about the lack of explanation on why the pumps were closed.

"If We had a pump out here, it would be something different. We depend on the water out there, so when I stopped, I was just like 'No this can't be happening,' because what's your plan? You just can't do that without a plan, so I was a little bothered," Jones expressed.

Webb County Judge, Tano Tijerina, says this is a measure that was taken out of precaution for ranchers to keep their families safe.

"It's not just the animal situation, we have to make sure that it is safe for human consumption. The people understand that they shouldn't be drinking that. Come to find out, everything that we know about what happened was just a precautionary measure that we took, and I would take it again if I had to," said Tijerina.

Commissioner for Precinct Two, Rosaura "Wawi" Tijerina, says it was the Emergency Management Team that made the call to shut all seven pumps.

Five of those pumps tap into the city's water.

Wawi noted, "It was not until I got calls from 359 and calls from 59 that I called the judge. Because the judge is the main emergency manager, they're the ones who make the decisions. It's not us a commissioner."

As Laredo continues to deal with these water quality issues, ranchers hope for better communication and solutions to mitigate the impact on their operations.

Judge Tijerina says the water pumps were only closed for a period of up to 48 hours.

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