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City of Marfa Receives State Loan for New Water Well

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On Tuesday, the state water board approved nearly $4 billion in funding for local-level water projects.

The board agreed to award the City of Marfa a $705,000 low-interest loan to build a new city water well.

The city previously tried, but failed, to repair an 80-year-old water well that was damaged when a pump became lodged in the well casing.

The repairs resulted in day-long outages, frustrating some residents and local business owners.

When the repairs didn't work, the city instead applied for a loan from the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). The approved loan will be used to build a completely new well to replace the damaged one.

At Thursday's meeting of the state water board, TWDB Chairman Bech Brunn said he was particularly happy to support the Marfa proposal alongside similar projects from across the state.

"I think it's telling that we jumped from discussion about arguably the most important project to the greater Houston/Harris County area, to talking about an equally important project in scope to a service population of 2,000 or so people out in Far West Texas," he said.

Travis Bubenik is All Things Considered Host and Big Bend Reporter at Marfa Public Radio.