(LAREDO, TX.) – Today, Acción de Gente Unida para Agua Segura! (AGUAS!), represented by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), delivered a formal notice to the City of Laredo that it intends to file a “Citizen Suit” under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) unless it remedies continuing violations of the SDWA within 60-days. Excessive boil water notices (BWN) have been issued due to the city’s ongoing failure to maintain and operate its public water system (PWS) as required by the federal SDWA and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) regulations implementing the SDWA to protect Texas public drinking water systems.

AGUAS!, an unincorporated nonprofit citizens’ organization, and five individual consumers are named in the “Citizen Suit” notice. The letter addressed to Mayor Pete Saenz, and Utilities Department Director, Arturo Garcia, Jr., provides notice that consumers intend to sue the City of Laredo.

“AGUAS! was founded in October 2019 when the City of Laredo ignored an order from the TCEQ to issue a boil water notice resulting from the city’s inability to maintain proper levels of chlorine in the drinking water system,” said Carlos Blanco, AGUAS! founder. “We were outraged that for seven days the city disobeyed the order and allowed people to consume potentially unsafe water – prioritizing saving face over people’s health.”

AGUAS! advocates on behalf of residents of south Laredo and the nine colonias located off State Highway 359 - consumers who are too often forgotten by the city as compared to their neighbors to the north. These residents have been disproportionately affected by the city’s repeat violations of federal and state drinking water standards. “This reeks of discrimination,” said Blanco, “and AGUAS! intends to put an end to that.”

On September 5, 2019, TCEQ launched an investigation against the city’s public water system after a citizen’s complaint alleged a lack of chlorine disinfectant in the water. During the investigation, TCEQ found that the city was unable to maintain Total Chlorine (TCI) levels over 0.5 milligrams per liter throughout the distribution system and at each storage tank in violation of the SDWA and state regulations.

On September 20, 2019, TCEQ advised city leaders that the Utilities Department must either increase TCl levels within 24 hours or issue a BWN to its customers.

On September 21, 2019, under federal and state drinking water standards, TCEQ notified the city that it must issue a BWN because it had failed to increase TCl levels; however, the city ignored TCEQ and did not issue a BWN until September 28, 2019.

Laredo has issued five more BWNs since 2019. Most recently, notices occurred in 2020, 2021, and February 2022. The most shocking boil water notice lasted 63-days and only affected colonia residents.

Since at least 2014, the City of Laredo has repeatedly violated and is continuing to violate the SDWA. Consumers of Laredo’s public water system have been and continue to be exposed to potentially unsafe drinking water containing pathogens.

“The city’s repeated and ongoing violations of the SDWA have created dangerous and unfair living conditions for these residents and AGUAS! intends to file a Citizen Suit to ensure that the city complies with its legal duty to manage and operate its public water system in compliance with federal and state law and provide potable water to all consumers on an equal basis,” said Kristen Adams, a leading lawyer on the team of TRLA lawyers representing AGUAS! “Where TCEQ fails to diligently prosecute ongoing SDWA violations, as is the case here, the citizens have a right to file suit and themselves see to it that the SDWA is strictly and fully enforced,” declared Adams.

“We know that these water system problems will continue, and more boil water notices will be issued again and again unless we take action,” said Veronica Aleman, a named party in the 60-day notice and would-be plaintiff in the case. “TCEQ has simply slapped the city on the wrist for its various, ongoing violations, so the city has not taken its water issues seriously, which is why we are in the same place today as we were back in 2019.”

Today’s filing provides the City of Laredo an opportunity to meet with consumers as well as residents of South Laredo and the State Highway 359 colonias, to discuss a possible resolution of the issues and violations raised. The City of Laredo has 60-days from the date it receives the notice to respond.

About Texas RioGrande Legal Aid

Texas RioGrande Legal Aid provides free legal services to people who cannot afford an attorney in 68 southwestern counties, including the entire Texas-Mexico border. TRLA attorneys specialize in more than 45 areas of law, including disaster assistance, family, employment, landlord-tenant, housing, education, immigration, farmworker, and civil rights. Our hotline is open from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. (CST) Monday - Friday: (956)-996-TRLA (8752) or toll-free at (833) 329-TRLA (8752).