For Immediate Release:
July 2, 2017
8:00 am

Contact:   Rob Dean, 432-371-2737
rgvranger@yahoo.com

Study Butte Residents Have Their Water Restored 

Study Butte and Terlingua residents are finally enjoying some relief after 13 days of extreme temperatures and being without water service.  A presumed lightening strike damaged the motor on the SBWSC system main producing well on June 19.  A new motor was installed by Skinner Well Service on Friday, June 30 and water production began throughout the night bringing the system back online. The system, which serves 248 south Brewster County residents, took about 24 hours to pressurize and today the system is fully operational.

 During the outage,  trucks from the Texas Forest Service, Pecos County, Big Bend National Park, and Terlingua Fire and EMS transported water donated by Lajitas Resorts and Big Bend Resorts and Adventures to the Bee Mtn. storage tank in an all out effort to maintain volume and pressure.  The outage also allowed system operators to work on and make repairs to lines and equipment that should increase the water delivery efficiency. With the main well out of operation, water production was reduced to 42 gallons gpm.   Installing the new motor increased the system production to above 180 gpm which is adequate to provide the community needs.  Under normal conditions, system demand is about 80 pgm and with the extreme temperatures the demand is increased.

All residents are advised to continue water conservation as the Level 4 Water Conservation Emergency measures remains in effect.  This means water may be used for normal household use while watering lawns, gardens, washing vehicles, etc is prohibited.  Residents are advised to boil water used for consumption (see the Boil Water notice at www.studybuttewater.com for details).

Bottled drinking water has been donated by numerous organizations and is available to those in need at the Brewster County Emergency Services Center in Terlingua. Drinking water remains available to those in need at the Terlingua EMS building from daily 10am to 2pm.