In West Texas, the multi-billion dollar oil industry is booming, but many people in one of the region’s unincorporated communities still don’t have reliable access to running water.
West Odessa is a community of about 50,000 people located next door to the bigger city of Odessa proper. People have been lured here by cheap land and a lack of regulations.
It’s a place where you might spot a small ranch in the middle of a neighborhood or an equipment yard filled with drilling rigs.
But as more people have moved there, the demand for water - for everything from drinking to household chores - has grown, and local infrastructure hasn’t kept up with the demand.
Now, there’s a grassroots effort underway to try and address that problem.
Driving through her neighborhood, Catarina Tavarez points out large water tanks nestled behind the mobile homes and houses that line the streets. The tanks are where people store the water they have to purchase and then haul back to their homes because they don’t have a reliable source of water.
Over the years, West Odessa’s population has grown and more people have moved beyond existing water lines. Tavarez said locals expected they’d eventually get running water, but that never happened. That’s forced her family and others to have to drive to get non-potable water from questionable groundwater wells for general use around the house and to buy bottled water to drink.
This can get expensive: Tavarez said her family spends hundreds of dollars a month on water.
“I know there are alot of people who don’t have the money, I know there are some people who don’t have the means to carry,” she said. “We have had people beg us to please go take them water.”
Tavarez said people deserve to have easy access to water, which is why she joined the West Odessa Water Warriors. It's a small group whose goal is to get treated, running water to anyone who wants it in the oil field community.
The nonprofit group was founded by Patti Kappauf last year. She said people out here struggle to do the simplest things because they don’t have access to enough water.
“Some people water their grass and don’t think twice about it,” she said. “Well, there are people living in our county who care how long that water faucet is on, whether it's showering or doing the dishes.”
Getting more pipes in the ground in order to expand access to running water isn’t going to be easy. Kappauf said it might even take “a miracle.”
“You’d think prolific oilfields, right, we would have money,” she said. “But we don’t and, you know, this population just got out of control.”
So far, Kappauf said the West Odessa Water Warriors have negotiated to have water delivered to some residents, searched for grants, and is now working to get more people involved with the effort.
“My vision is that we can have a block leader in every part of West Odessa, and they would know their neighbors just like you know your family,” she said. “They know who has water and who doesn’t have water.”
Kappauf wants to get as many people running water as she can, but she said West Odessans are going to have to advocate for themselves, especially when more money is dedicated toward this issue.
But that could take years, which keeps Darrell Pando up at night. He was recently elected to the board of directors of the Ector County Utility District, which provides water to some parts of West Odessa.
“The main issue is 99% of the people that are asking for water are outside the district, so there’s no infrastructure out there whatsoever," he said.
Pando wants to see more West Odessans get running water. He knows that it’s difficult for many residents to haul in their water. After years of what he described as mismanagement and bad investments, he said the district doesn’t have the millions of dollars needed to run water lines to the far corners of West Odessa. That fact has led to some difficult conversations. He recalled a resident asking him, “Darrell, you mean to tell me that I probably won’t be alive by the time you get me water?”
“I might not even be alive,” he replied.
Pando said the district is now heading in the right direction. There are projects in the works that could connect some homes to the water system as the district replaces old infrastructure. He also said the district is going to build a water station that will offer clean drinking water to residents that don’t have it.
Still, those initiatives won’t solve the community’s larger water issues. Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett said West Odessa needs a plan if the community wants help expanding water infrastructure.
“It’s hard to go after either federal grants or state grants without an actual plan,” he said. “You can’t just go down there and say ‘we need money for water’ without telling them what exactly the need is and what our game plan would be with the money that we are asking for.”
He said the county is looking into crafting a master water plan for West Odessa and other nearby communities. Fawcett is also excited that Texas lawmakers are considering investing billions into water projects across the state during this year’s legislative session.
West Odessans who are struggling to get water can feel abandoned at times. For Tavarez, she’s not sure how much local and statewide leaders care about water challenges they are facing.
“It’s not an issue for them, it’s not a priority for them,” she said. “This is a basic need, running water is a basic need that we all have….it should have been fixed years ago.”
Tavarez is not giving up. She said plans to continue advocating for her community and looking for solutions.
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