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Local county abruptly stops delivering water to Boca Chica

Without any warning Cameron county early this month abruptly stopped its decades-long delivery of water to residents of Boca Chica and the newly formed town of Starbase.

[T]he county suddenly stopped the $15 monthly service — with no notice — earlier this month, said Keith Reynolds, a Starbase resident unaffiliated with SpaceX.

“Abruptly cutting off water service without notice poses safety and public health risks,” Kent Myers, Starbase’s city administrator, wrote in a letter to County Commissioner Sofia Benavides, whose precinct includes that stretch of Texas 4. Starbase, he pointed out, “has neither the legal authority nor operational capacity to deliver water to these residents.”

Neither the county nor Commissioner Benavides has responded to multiple requests for comment about the decision. Reynolds said the county and Benavides “decided to leave everybody high and dry without water — didn’t say a word.”

…Reynolds, who’s had his troubles with his SpaceX neighbors over the years — including power surges, traffic, drones and behavior he’s described as bullying, said the county’s recent move bothers him more than anything SpaceX has done. “That’s just a willful denying of basic services to your residents,” he said. “You can’t just stop being a provider of water for a whole community.”

The county’s action including cutting off service to residents both inside Starbase and those nearby.

SpaceX has been topping off residents tanks for the time being at no charge. It is in the process of establishing its own water system, but for these locals to access it will require them to sign agreements that require them to evacuate during launches if ordered to by SpaceX.

The lack of explanation or warning strongly suggests the county’s actions were a political retaliation against the recent creation of the town of Starbase. County Commissioner Benavides had previously opposed the recently passed state law that gave Starbase the power to close Boca Chica’s beaches.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 

The print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

10 comments

  • Jeff Wright

    Time to get a desalinization plant–and to make Boca Area 52.

    I want these fools feeling rifle butts to the backs of their heads

  • Steve H.

    And all this time I’ve been told that it’s the Republicans that are mean spirited and spiteful monsters. Cutting off a towns water supply in July in Texas with no notice? Yep, that classifies as the very definition of mean spirited.

  • Rob Crawford

    She’s a Democrat, BTW.

  • Robin K Juhl

    Given the number of people blindsided, one might expect the next county election to be interesting!

  • James Street

    “Cutting off a towns water supply in July in Texas with no notice?” – Steve H

    The leftist bureaucrats who did this probably chuckled thinking it was funny, but it’s not too far removed from the mindset of loading people onto boxcars and shipping them off to the gas chambers.

  • pzatchok

    Wow the profit they just through away.
    They could have kept charging the citizens like always and charged the rocket facilities huge.
    As the new city grows the possible new customers would reach the tens of thousands.

    Now they are just forcing Space X to build a new and expandable waste water treatment facility a fresh water treatment plant and possibly a desalination plant. Star base and its citizens can not legally be denied access to water sources.
    They can be denied access to the purification facilities and delivery system but not the water itself.

  • Dick Eagleson

    The whole Rio Grande Valley, which is heavily Latino, has been trending red, politically, in recent years. Partly, it’s a matter of SpaceX having transformed the Cameron County economy from the poorest in TX to one of increasing prosperity. But I suspect an even bigger factor was the Biden regime’s open-borders policy. There is a tendency by many – especially lefties – to assume most of the massive wave of illegal border-crossers from 2021 – 2025 were also Latino, but the percentage of Middle Easterners, Africans and Asians rose hugely over this period. Any supposed sympathy Latino-Americans might have had for Latino illegals – and such sympathy is not especially high – didn’t translate at all to those of non-Latino ethnicity.

    The RGV political establishment – mostly Latino Democrats – has been, to say the least, upset at the growing “red-ification” of their formerly safely Dem demesne. Some, such as the county-level twit responsible for this water cut-off don’t seem to have gotten the message that times are changing and the old Dem establishment can no longer simply do what it wants to with impunity. As all of the victims of this latest idiocy are also Cameron County voters, I suspect the overdue message about new realities to be delivered – good and hard – the next time said twit’s county office is up for re-election.

  • Wamphyr

    I’d drill for water, and curve the drill so that the water is drawn from below Benavides’ house.

    Then Reynolds can write another letter to Benavides, simply saying, “I drink your milkshake. I drink it up!”

  • Jeff Wright

    The DNC forgot that many folks South of the border are VERY socially conservative.

    The United States has been far too forgiving of Green nonsense.

    Time we had the French’s Rainbow Warrior take on things.

    I want Greens fearfull of any footsteps behind them.

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