Water Restrictions: Car Wash Woes

Amidst all the problems the city has been facing following record low temperatures and services outages, one local car wash wanted to comply with the mandatory water restrictions.

But the business owner couldn’t get anyone with El Paso Water Utilities to shut off a major leak at his car wash.

Sun City Car Wash on Mesa Street had it’s hands full on Sunday. A water leak flooded the business and the manager said they needed help.

“It’s frustrating because we’re losing water. We need to conserve water right now. That’s the problem right there,” said Art Ramirez, Sun City Car Wash manager.

He said the problem started on Saturday. After he realized the problem wasn’t on the business’ property, he immediately called El Paso Water Utilities.

However, EPWU officials told ABC-7 they received nearly 2,000 customer calls, so response times varied. They said that’s why it was difficult for them to send a crew to the car wash.

Ramirez would have turned the water off himself, but the main water valve was broken.

“It’s not anyone’s fault. Mother nature dealt this on us. We have to work together to get it resolved,” Ramirez said.

Many Borderland residents are trying to do their part and follow the water restrictions, like Juan Chavez.

“I’m not going to lie. I was going to wash my car. But, I remembered about the city water alert. I’m only going to clean my car from inside,” said Chavez.

Ramirez said he hoped EPWU was going to be able to send someone to help him as soon as possible.