EPWU Water Coming Soon To Canutillo Colonias

Good news for a pair of Borderland colonias on Wednesday.

The Public Service Board approved water improvements that in upcoming months will connect more than 300 homes out in the county to El Paso Water Utilities for the first time.

In the Mayfair Nuway and Schuman Estates colonias, which are located off of Doniphan out in far West El Paso County, water has come from only nearby wells for decades.

Alva Cisneros has lived in the Schuman Estates colonia out in Canutillo for 17 years, where a fire Wednesday morning destroyed the pump that used to bring dirty well water to her property.

“I don’t have water,” Cisneros said in Spanish.

She said the pump froze, as it often does in the winter, which led to the fire. When ABC-7 informed her that the PSB board approved a project Wednesday that will bring city water to her county property by summer, she was more than relieved.

“Hopefully, it’s soon,” she said. “We need it and it would make me really happy.”

Cisneros said the water from the well is too dirty to drink, there’s no water pressure and the water leaves the bathroom dirty.

“We have to use acid and bleach to clean the bathroom,” Cisneros said.

Down the street from Cisneros, Fabian Loya has been dealing with his own water issues for decades.

“It’s kind of difficult, because sometimes the water comes out with a lot of dirt,” said Loya, who is also looking forward to the project being completed. “It’ll make a lot of difference, because we don’t have to go to the store and be buying water. We’ll have the water here now.”

Maria Socorro Perez, who lives in the Schuman Estates, attended Wednesday’s PSB meeting. “We have a lot of problems,” she said. “Now I feel so grateful we’re going to have city water.”

Christina Montoya, a spokeswoman for El Paso Water Utilities, said all of the work will be done using $2 million of state and federal grant money.

“These are significant projects,” Montoya said. “There were thousands of people, hundreds of thousands, that were out of water before the 1990s. Since El Paso Water Utilities has been working very hard and aggressively with the county, now we estimate there’s only about 5,000 customers that are without high quality service in the county.”

Montoya said the Schuman Estates should have water by the end of June. The Mayfair Nuway colonia will take a little longer, with city water expected to flow there by mid-October.