Laredo Confronts Drought and Water Shortage with Minimal Options

that goes onto lawns and gardens, said Arturo Garcia, utilities director for the city of Laredo.

“During this heat people are really watering their yards, it was just excessive,” Garcia said. “Some people water every day.”

The city sells water to about 270,000 people — a figure that has doubled since the 1990s. Long gone are Laredo’s famous days of vaqueros on the open range. Today, its old Western historic downtown sits dilapidated in its center while traffic clogs the freeways of the sprawling city beyond. Nearby, the Port of Laredo, the nation’s largest inland port, processes more than $250 billion in annual trade with Mexico on trucks and trains.

Around the city’s edge, working oil wells recall the fracking boom of the late 2000s that drew jobs and people to the Eagle Ford Shale that sits beneath Laredo. Even the border security agenda has brought wealth here through expanded Border Patrol headquarters, federally funded immigrant detention centers and deployment of the Texas state guard.

Through all that time, Laredo drank freely from the Rio Grande and a giant reservoir, Amistad Lake, where it stores its water about 180 miles upstream, both of which are at extremely low levels.

Aged System Impedes Ssolutions
Decades of strong growth have not left Laredo with a sophisticated municipal water system. The city has issued boil-water notices four times in the last three years, and some planners suspect it could happen again when Laredo imposes restrictions.

The system depends on users at every end to keep water moving. If water use drops, the system can stagnate. Already, the city utilities department flushes about a million gallons each day into city streets and storm drains just to keep fresh water in the system. It’s a standard practice for municipal water supplies, but Laredo is trapped in it more than most.

While the 30 million monthly gallons flushed barely compare with the hundreds of millions sprayed onto laws, they still account for 3% of Laredo’s water use. It’s a situation that shows how poor investment in infrastructure can leave authorities unable to meet climate challenges.

“It’s a double-edged sword. When we want to start conserving water, we almost have to start flushing more,” said Michael Rodgers, assistant utilities director for Laredo.

Much of this situation traces to a state-funded campaign in the 1990s to run city water out to impoverished, informal rural neighborhoods called colonias beyond the outskirts of the city.

“We oversized the lines hoping