Crystal City, where several top officials have been charged with corruption, has a new worry — dirty tap water.

Amid corruption investigation, recall, residents turn on taps, find black gunk

The city manager has been suspended. The mayor was led off in handcuffs from the last council meeting.

Both of them and two councilmen are charged with bribery. A fourth council member was arrested on a charge of human smuggling.

And now Crystal City residents can’t drink the water.

Around 1 p.m. Thursday, a rash of calls about dark water — in some cases looking like thick, black oil — flowing from faucets lit up phones at the water utility department. Then came complaints about little to no water pressure.

Turns out the public works department was flushing out the city’s main water tank. The process began Wednesday evening and apparently was sending rust and sediment flowing into the pipes of every home and business in the town of about 7,200 people.

Chris Jimenez, administrative assistant with the utilities department, said the city team was using fire hydrants to speed the process along. According to city officials, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality had suggested opening the hydrants to “fully flush (the) tank and minimize residential distribution.”

“Hopefully everything will be taken care of by (Friday) morning,” Jimenez said.

No warning given

Officials hadn’t expected the trouble, so no notice had been given. The public works department finally gave notice about the problem Thursday, posting it on the city’s Facebook page. A separate public notice advised residents to boil water for two minutes before consumption. The city said it would notify residents when it’s safe to stop boiling water.

Jimenez said the city has sent water samples to TCEQ to be analyzed. While awaiting test results to determine safety, he said, residents should continue boiling the water before using. But if black water is coming from the tap, he said, residents should buy bottled water.

“We found out from Facebook,” said resident Edward Surita, 51, noting the water was fine when his family took showers Wednesday evening. “I turned on the faucet (after reading a Facebook comment), and the water came out clean about 30 seconds until it turned black. It did have a smell to it.”

Imelda Allen, superin- tendent of the Crystal City Independent School District, also became aware of the problem Wednesday night.

She was at her sister’s house, when murky water with an odor started flowing when a faucet was turned on. Not anticipating any notice from a crippled city government, Allen called the district’s transportation department and asked her employees to deliver bottled water for Thursday morning.

‘We were prepared’

“We’ve taken every precaution,” she said. “We were prepared.”

The district has about 2,000 students who attend an elementary, middle and two high schools.

Allen said with little water pressure at the schools, the students started early release around 1 p.m.

She recalled that the last time a public works team cleaned the water tank was about 10 years ago, and there were no problems then.

Allen said if the problem continues through Friday, the district has bottled water ready to be distributed at the four campuses.

“We’re ready for our kids,” she said. “This keeps us on our toes.”

The city’s water problems come amid an unprecedented political crisis, as five city officials are under federal indictment.

At this point, the city doesn’t have a functional city council.

This was made clear Wednesday night when only one council member, Joel Barajas, the only one not under indictment, appeared for the scheduled meeting, forcing it to be canceled for lack of a quorum.

Indicted for bribery and related charges are suspended City Manager and City Attorney James Jonas III, Mayor Ricardo Lopez and City Council members Rogelio Mata and Roel Mata, who are brothers.

Roel Mata has resigned, sources say, and Rogelio Mata has not been at a city council meeting since his arrest on the corruption charge.

The fifth member of the council, Marco Rodriguez, was indicted for human smuggling in an unrelated matter.

Efforts continue

Meanwhile, legal efforts to force the council to hold a recall election of Mayor Lopez, Rogelio Mata and Rodriguez, are continuing.

Last year, citizens gathered more than 1,200 signatures seeking to recall the three, but the effort was blocked by Jonas.

And although District Judge Amado Abascal last week ordered the city to proceed with the election, no date has been set.