Water Quality

Water service and supply has been a long standing issue here in Wilmer. Staff attrition at the Wilmer Water Works has created yet another non-compliance issue for the City.

According to Joe Martinez, a regional inspector for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality confirmed today that the City of Wilmer is non-compliant with licensing laws and regulations. For a city the size of Wilmer, TCEQ requires that we have two state licensed operators for our water supply. Earlier this year, Wilmer's Water Superintendent passed away leaving us with only one licensed operator. According to Mr. Martinez, "technically" there is no grace period within which the City is allowed to operate without the required number of licensed operators. From a practical perspective and given the circumstances, Mr. Martinez stated that his agency will work with the City to bring our operation up to compliance.

Instead of hiring or contracting with a licensed professional in the short term, our sources indicate that the City of Wilmer plans to send existing employees to school and test for the required license. Unfortunately, Wilmer's plans for complying with the regulations can't be realized until at least May. Even so, there's no guarantee that the training expense will result in successfully passing the license exam.

We can only hope that the lag time in bringing our Water Department into compliance will not impede or restrict the developments currently under construction - or keep additional developments from coming to Wilmer. Perhaps the Ciy should consider bringing on an already licensed professional to bring our Water operations up to code now. While training a "home grown" staffer to sit for the license exam could be considered laudable, we must question the efficacy of that decision.