Dear Editor,
The United Nations states:
“Access to water and sanitation are recognized by the United Nations as human rights – fundamental to everyone’s health, dignity and prosperity. However, billions of people are still living without safely managed water and sanitation.”
https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/human-rights-water-and-sanitation
Many people here in Presidio County are a part of those billions of people that are still living without safely managed water and sanitation. You would think that in the United States with all our technical and economic advantages over most countries, that safe and reliable water for all its citizens shouldn’t be a problem. But it is.
The money is there, the technology is there, so what is the problem? It is the bureaucratic bottleneck. Our small communities without safe water are being told we must do this ourselves. Many of these small communities are made up of elderly, low-income populations. The steering committee for a new water corporation in Shafter is pulling money out of their own bank accounts to pay for incorporation fees for the state, mailings to keep our community and property owners informed, not to mention the unpaid hours we are putting in to try to make this happen.
I know that there are advocates fighting for us to get the infrastructure funding (thank you Trey Gerfers), but then you have the nay-sayers who love to throw up the bureaucratic roadblocks thinking we are just asking for government handouts. We all pay taxes in the form of property taxes and sales tax but are we receiving the benefits? Those living in Marfa or Presidio receive all the benefits of water, sewer, and garbage pick-up. It’s great that these municipal programs are working for them, but the rest of the county and small communities are left out in the cold, even though we are paying taxes.
All I am asking is that our elected officials do their job. And it is not just our local officials. What are our state and federal representatives doing to help us? Find the funding. Instead of funding wars all over the world, why can’t the feds fund the infrastructure so we all can have safe water and adequate sanitation.
David F. Long
Shafter Texas
