Officials at Big Bend National Park are reporting a "critical water shortage" in the park’s popular Chisos Basin area after key infrastructure failed just two days before Christmas.
The ongoing water outage comes amid one of the park’s busiest times of year.
In a press release Saturday, the park said water pumps at Oak Spring — the basin’s sole supply — had failed completely on December 23 and a back up pump was off-site being repaired and unavailable. Stage 2 water restrictions were immediately enacted to conserve water from storage tanks, according to park officials.
In addition to general water conservation efforts, Stage 2 restrictions include reducing flow rates at public water spigots and turning off fill hoses at RV dump stations, according to Chief of Interpretation and Visitor Services Don Corrick.
“The park asks that campers, Lodge guests, and other visitors to the Chisos Basin do their part to conserve water so that the Basin can stay open for as long as possible,” officials wrote in the release.
It is possible that the basin will have to close to the public if water reserves dip below the minimum needed for firefighting, officials said. There is no timeline for when the water pump repair will occur, but it is likely to take several weeks despite officials’ attempts to “expedite” the process, according to the release.
The latest water outage comes just months before the Chisos Basin is set to close for two years so that the lodge and water distribution system can undergo upgrades.
Big Bend National Park was awarded $77 million in 2020 from the passage of the Great American Outdoors Act which it will use to update the Chisos Mountains Lodge and park water systems.
“This emergency illustrates the importance of that project,” the release said.
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