Presidio County has been working for over three years now to obtain funding for essential water and wastewater infrastructure in the form of grants and loans from the Texas Water Development Board. We were told of funding of such historic proportions that the lender would be “throwing the money out the window.” We were assured that the lender was eager to “get points on the board” with rural regions specifically, and that Presidio County could serve as a “model” for other underserved communities.
With robust technical assistance and expertise from our grant writer, Bill Moriarty, as well as the Environmental Defense Fund and Water Finance Exchange, Presidio County organized a Water Infrastructure Steering Committee, bringing together representatives from every community in the county. Local governments at all levels passed resolutions committing themselves to the steering committee process and the 40-member group met frequently throughout 2022 to compile a comprehensive list of projects. The idea was to work together regionally to get the needs of every community met, rather than competing against each other for this funding –– a groundbreaking concept whose time had come.
The county was soon invited to apply for $12.6 million in pre-approved funding from TWDB’s Economically Distressed Areas Program (EDAP) to bring first-time water and wastewater to colonias like Las Pampas and Shafter, as well as several areas of Marfa. The 100-year-old sewer system under Fort D.A. Russell (now known as the Chinati Foundation) –– long the subject of environmental violations due to raw sewage leaking on open ground –– would also be replaced.
The lender dithered and eventually withdrew $8 million in EDAP funding because there was no county-wide utility and this constituted “too many unknowns.” The county would have to be content with a fraction of the originally promised amount and could reapply for the remaining funding at a later date. After lurching from one cliffhanger to the next, the EDAP loan miraculously closed in January of this year and actual money began to flow in August, a mere two-and-a-half years after the lender had preapproved the funding.
The EDAP deal involved the issuance of nearly $1.5 million in county debt, with the remaining $3 million to be released in the form of a grant. One condition of the loan required the county to form a Utility Systems Board (USB), which was swiftly created and began meeting in January of this year. Around that same time, the county hired me as the program manager, and I started working on the EDAP projects with our engineers in February.
We had almost finalized two proposed solutions for each of the project areas when the lender suddenly informed us in September that nearly half of our project areas were actually ineligible for EDAP funding. Unless a parcel has a physical residence on it, the lender insisted, the county cannot build any infrastructure to it with EDAP funding. Las Pampas residents, who have been waiting for decades, whose structures may have fallen down in the meantime or who never built a residence because there was no water, will not be receiving water with EDAP funding. Chinati Foundation, whose sewer was built to serve thousands of soldiers residing at the fort, is not eligible for EDAP funding because the fort-turned-foundation no longer meets the lender’s residence requirements. One is left with the impression that the goalposts have been moved, and the engineers and I are now scrambling to relitigate the eligibility of each individual parcel within the project areas. In the end, we will be forced to design rump systems that make little sense from an engineering standpoint and fail to meet the needs we clearly outlined in our EDAP application.
As if that weren’t enough of a shock, the lender informed Presidio County on November 21 that it was withdrawing another $15 million in preapproved funding from the State Revolving Funds (SRFs) because the county had failed to complete its 2023 annual audit. It’s no secret that the county auditor and her one assistant are overwhelmed and under-resourced. The low morale at the courthouse probably also played a role. Could the judge spend more time in his office, leading by example and raising morale? Certainly. Could the county attorney have done his job instead of adding to everyone else’s burden by not showing up for work since March? Definitely. Could the commissioners work harder to lighten the judge’s workload and better serve their constituents? Most assuredly. And could the county auditor be more emphatic when voicing her need for support? Yes. But regardless of our flaws, Presidio County is not unique. Virtually all rural counties have dysfunction. If the state is serious about helping the underserved, Presidio County should be at the top of the list. And unlike many other counties, we are not two to three years behind on our annual audits. We just couldn’t produce the latest audit within the lender’s timetable, and now many months of work and stress have come to nothing.
The TWDB is a lender with a notoriously difficult application process. I have spent hours, days, even weeks chasing down the information they require. Those weeks then easily turn into months because the team that is handling our SRF applications routinely fails to respond to emails and phone calls. This lack of communication is further aggravated by requests for information that waste precious time. For example, a TWDB team leader contacted me demanding answers to questions about two arsenic-removal projects in the county that TWDB had funded several years ago. Come to find out, he already had the answers he was seeking in his own project notes which he seemingly failed to read. Another TWDB team member demanded reports for five entities, three of which were not included in our application and one of which his own agency classifies as “non-reporting.” These rabbit holes, among others, took weeks to resolve. Can you imagine trying to buy a home through a lender that asks for answers it already has and demands documents it doesn’t need?
Most applicants would just walk away from this monkey business. But Presidio County doesn’t have that luxury. We need the grant dollars attached to the loan. And I felt perfectly justified in admonishing both of these gentlemen to think carefully before burdening an economically distressed area like ours with unnecessary work. They didn’t take too kindly to my reprimands, especially when an applicant is typically expected to act like a supplicant.
Perhaps as a result, the lender went dark on us for months, refusing to meaningfully respond to emails or phone calls about the status of our SRF applications. In August, we finally heard that a new team leader had been appointed and she wrote to say she would set up a meeting the following week. After three more weeks went by with no word from her, we desperately requested a meeting with her team. Imagine my surprise when the new team leader and her 8-10 colleagues on the video-conference were unable to answer a single one of our questions. That’s right. Not a single one. After I blasted them on the call in a manner not dissimilar to the way I have sometimes blasted the Presidio County commissioners and county attorney, I received a letter from the new team leader accusing me of unprofessional behavior. The irony was apparently lost on her.
This same team leader and the gentleman who insisted I provide him with reports he didn’t need are now taking an ax to our EDAP eligibility, threatening to bring an already-glacial process to a virtual halt. So, while losing the $15 million in SRF funding is definitely discouraging, the thought of further tying our destiny to such a capricious lender has come to seem somewhat unwise.
Whether it’s $4.6 million or $15 million, this is a lot of money for a rural community. Such transactions should be built on trust — a quality lenders typically strive to develop with their clients through good-faith actions over time. But this lender’s refusal to provide timely guidance to first-time applicants, rigid adherence to opaque rules, and readiness to change those rules without notice leave little room for anything but confusion.
I am recounting Presidio County’s experience with some trepidation because I have been warned not to embarrass the TWDB. It seems just about everyone is scared to death of this agency’s wrath. But what choice do I have? Unless someone has the courage to speak truth to power, the most vulnerable among us will continue to get the runaround and the much-needed reform of this lender will be delayed indefinitely. My hope is that our story can play some part in an eventual solution.
As disheartening as this situation may be, it’s important to remember that we have much to be grateful for here in Presidio County. We have amazing vistas, clean air and wide open spaces. We have vibrant communities that found a way to work together to go after this money in the first place. And we have two energetic, new commissioners and a bright, young county attorney about to take office in January. Even though we may be saddened by this setback, we must resist the urge to point fingers at each other, to assign blame for our shortcomings. We may not always know what we’re doing, but at least we’re trying to do something. Regions like ours have long been neglected by the powers that be in Austin. But we’ve made it this far and we’ll continue to find ways to move forward, with or without the help of a lender who keeps claiming to be a champion for rural communities.
Trey Gerfers serves as general manager of the Presidio County Underground Water Conservation District. A San Antonio native, he has lived in Marfa since 2013 and can be reached at tgerfers@pcuwcd.org.
Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to remove a statement that Presidio County has “abundant groundwater.” While current water demands are being met, studies determining the health of the Igneous Aquifer are ongoing.