THE COASTAL BEND MAGAZINE • Late Spring 2019 45 TheCoastalBend.com Coastal Bend Community dollars and counting, all due to the failings of one City department—and amazingly, but not surprising to those of us who have grown accustom to pay-for-less from our municipal services, one city employee in particular is at the root of just about every notable debacle borne at the Water Department. And the list is long. Water boil orders in 2015-16 led to the closure of restaurants, medical offices and hundreds of businesses and public services throughout our city of over 330,000. The economic cost was in the tens of millions, people lost work hours, some lost their jobs entirely, and thousands of City customers became educated in the sani- tation methods of the 19th Century—boil your water before you consume it or risk disease and death. The water circus came full-circle when in December 2016, due to a deer-in-the- headlights moment by our water managers, a chemical leak at a Valero refinery con- struction site triggered a city-wide, no use order—our water was deemed a hazard to all living beings, ingested or in contact with skin (and fur). Last year, following a “software upgrade” of the City utility billing system, cus- tomers began seeing massive and unexplained spikes in water usage on their bills. Some of our neighbors received bills for thousands of dollars in usage that had noth- ing to do with them. The errors were blamed on the software supplier, but the real story, the one that travels the corridors of City Hall, is quite different. Some of the biggest failures at the Water Department are less-known to the public, as we have not been directly affected—although all of us are on the hook financially. A proposal to scrap the City’s wastewater system and consolidate it into one central plant, cost almost $1.5 million to be confirmed as infeasible and a mas- sive waste of money. Two water towers that cost almost $10 million in total have been setting inoperable, as Texas regulators prepare to fine the City for failing to meet numerous deadlines to get them up and running—the towers are vital public safety assets in the event of a natural disaster. Over this decade of debacles at the City of Corpus Christi Water Department, one man has managed it all and continues to ascend at City Hall, even once aspiring to win the most important and vital position in the entire municipality, that of City Manager. While we as citizens live in a state of anxious expectation and worry over the next disaster at the Water Department, Assistant City Manager Mark Van Vleck has already mismanaged a painful saga over the last decade—one we and our kids will be paying off for the foreseeable future. Meanwhile, our proper and polite elect- ed City leaders will never name a name and seem more concerned with not rocking the boat. The real question is whether someone will stand up and do something. K iko’s is probably the most popular, family-owned, sit-down restaurant in Corpus Christi, serving up delicious Tex-Mex for almost 40 years, starting in the old Parkdale Plaza on South Staples, and in its stand- alone location on Everhart Road for two decades. Like just about all restaurants in town, Kiko’s lost almost two weeks of business, at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars, resulting from a 2015 city-wide water boil order, one in May 2016, and the total usage ban in December 2016 that was blamed on contamination at a Valero refinery. Marcus Barrera, the restaurant’s owner, tells us that his purchase of an infrared purification system that protects against E. coli cost about $9,000, and not to spare insult from injury, he is disputing an unexplained charge of over $5,000 by the City for a water meter he knows noth- ing about. For this one, family-owned, small business in Corpus Christi, the measur- able losses due to failures at the Water Department easily exceed $50,000—not to mention lost income for his employees and his vendors. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) is in the business of both monitoring and regulating public water systems, as well as assisting water system authorities with the maintenance expertise required to keep drinking water safe. The agency provides training and certification for occupational licenses in- cluding Water System Operator, which is required by state law for operators “who (Above) Corpus Christi residents seen stocking up on bottled water in this image broadcast nationally on ABC News; (Middle) The Oso Water Treatment Plant on Ennis Joslin Rd., and; (Lower) Kiko’s Mexican Restaurant closed during one of two water boil orders.