HOUSTON – If you live in Houston, you’ve probably noticed the waterline breaks in the city.
Last week, KPRC 2 reported on geysers coming out of the ground in the Heights and West Houston. It’s this week’s focus on Pop-Off Politics.
The segment featuring KPRC2 Investigator Mario Diaz takes a look at how politicians spend tax dollars during their meetings.
This week, the City of Houston Public Works called on Council Members to approve nearly $48 million in emergency repairs to our waterlines.
Public Works will tell you we are “experiencing a high volume of waterline breaks, due to drought conditions.”
Director Carol Haddock and her team say these leaks are “at lower levels” than in prior years.
They add, “Houston Water would not be able to complete the necessary repairs to maintain the water distribution system.”
KPRC 2 looked at the city’s 311 data for the last month.
Reporter TJ Parker found 5,660 water leaks were called in and 3,112 calls for service to fix them. It’s double the amount at this time last year.
There are 11 companies Public Works enlisted to pull us out of our current mess.
The contracts range from $3 million to more than $11 million. This is in addition to what some of the companies made that started as early as April and as late as August.
The water woes are an age-old problem in the city. Council Member Abby Kamin tells us she plans to bring the issues back up to the city council. She wants to find other solutions to deal with our water infrastructure.
She says, “Whether they’re new pipes, old pipes, again, the drought is devastating our infrastructure right now. It’s one of the reasons I’ve been advocating at the state level for two sessions now, trying to get additional funding for infrastructure and drought resiliency.”
Houston City Council voted and approved the funding of roughly $48 million repairs on Wednesday.