MHWS-BPUB DEAL WILL MEAN CLEAN WATER FOR SAN PEDRO

By Juan Montoya

They had been led to water many times over more than a year, but this time – through the cooperation and insistence of a few city and county officials – San Pedro residents and children at Villa Nueva Elementary may finally have clean water.

At yesterday's board meeting of the Military Highway Water Supply, a majority finally agreed to allow the Brownsville Public Utility Board to tap into their water system to allow the water to be filtered, which will result in cleaner, clearer, tastier and, more importantly, healthier water. The  issue of the yellowish, brackish water was the only issue on the board's agenda and – led by the insistence of MHWS board members Juan Jose Lara, Rick Bennett, Jim Wells Jose F. Gonzales, Fernando Rangel Ramon Rosales Jr., and Attorney Barry Jones – the board approved the move. 

Residents were thankful to Cameron County Pct. 2 Commissioner Alex Dominguez who has been advocating on their behalf throughout the lengthy negotiations. Also playing an important role in improving the quality of water in San Pedro – which is inside the Brownsville city limits – was newly-elected District 4 commissioner Ben Neece and Commissioner At-Large "A" Cesar De Leon.

Residents marveled at the response from Neece and De Leon, which is in marked contrast to former District 4 commissioner John Villarreal and At-Large "B" commissioner Rose Gowen, who made a campaign stop there before the elections last May. At the time, both promised to help the residents. Villarreal lost and Gowen won, but after her victory she told residents there was "nothing" she could do.  

This surprised San Pedro residents who attended the meeting to no end since she flaunted her public health background. Gowen is a doctor, a gynecologist, and is continually asking for money for bike trials and pushing for a wellness agenda. Providing clean water for San Pedro apparently wasn't chic enough for her to get involved after she got the reidents' votes.

"Now the school children of Villa Nueva Elementary will have good quality drinking water to drink," said one of those attending the meeting. "The county doesn't operate the water supply company, but commissioner Dominguez has been there all along to help us with the problem. We are very grateful to him and the two city commissioners for their help. Until you don't have water, you don't know how important it is."

De Leon later said that he had spoken to BPUB board members to place an item in next week's agenda so that the PUB crews could proceed with the work to cap a section of MHWS' system and perform the work to filter the water to prevent contamination.

Neece also said that he had contacted PUB CEO and General Manager John Bruciak about the problem facing San Pedro residents.

"I think we have a good group from the city and county working on this and we're glad the people of San Pedro will finally have that problem solved," Dominguez said.