HARRIS COUNTY, Texas – Brown, smelly and dirty; that’s how homeowners in the Silver Glen community described their water, which they said was only getting worse.
“There are no words,” Sharon Mayo, one homeowner said.
There were pictures showing pipes lined with brown crud and a sewage treatment plant overflowing with waste.
“I’m angry,” she said. “I have the garden tub. I like to take baths and it would just be full of brown water.”
Mayo said her concerns and questions went unanswered until a recent water break in the community.
Michael Garrett, vice president of MUD District 304, told KPRC 2 that’s when they discovered just how bad it had gotten.
“The pipes haven’t been maintained within the last 20 years,” Garrett said. “They’ve never been cleaned.”
He and the president of the district, Lafrances Moses, have been on the board for just over a year. Garrett said while the break was being repaired, they also discovered there weren’t valves throughout the system - meaning all eight communities within the district lose water during any kind of piping repairs.
“I propose we come together and rebuild our infrastructure,” Moses said.
“All this money and nobody has ever fixed our water?” Mayo questioned.
In January, KPRC 2 first told audiences about a 70-page internal audit revealing that between 2015 and 2020, there were unnecessary losses estimated between $500,000 to $1 million at MUD District 304.
“Every day, it’s just a different story,” Larry Allen, another homeowner said.
A meeting was scheduled for Thursday night to vote on whether to clear the water pipes. However, a notice was sent out saying it had been cancelled because a majority of the five-member board was not going to show up.
“This is not going away,” Mayo said. “I’m definitely not going to let it go away because I’m going to continue fighting for what I feel like is a great community.”