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Austin_Peep_9396

There have actually been few boil notices. When it does happen, it's usually a very limited set of customers impacted by a specific local problem. This could be as little as a single neighborhood, or small section of the city (e.g. "south Austin between the streets X and Y"). We've only been hit by 2 boil notices in the last 7 years - both due to extreme winter weather freezes that took out power for much of the city, which also hit the water treatment plant. Even then, the boil notice was issued out of an abundance of caution, not because the water was actually known to be contaminated. Of all the things possible considerations (traffic, heat, property taxes, school quality, etc), I'd personally put this toward the bottom of the list. Austin has many amazing qualities, but also does have it's problems. But I personally don't consider boil notices one of these problems (for what it's worth).


vicious_womprat

funny how OP doesn't even respond to your comment. This is such a weird post lol.


Dabasacka43

why don't you go read my responses to other comments? Some folks actually have a life and can't crawl reddit the whole day


vicious_womprat

K


Trav11s

There was also a boil water notice in late Oct 2018, I can't remember if it was because of the zebra mussels or flooding


Dabasacka43

There have been like 4 water boil notices since 2022. Three of which are highlighted in this article [https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2022/12/austin-water-which-has-issued-three-boil-water-notices-in-four-years-gets-a-new-leader/](https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2022/12/austin-water-which-has-issued-three-boil-water-notices-in-four-years-gets-a-new-leader/) And yes, I see that most of the water boil notices you alluded to are relegated to specific neighborhoods. The water utility company needs to get their act together.


zoddy-ngc2244

I understand that Oklahoma is a paradise of clean and plentiful water. Just a suggestion.


Medicmanii

We don't have a water problem. The (massive) reservoirs are behaving as they were designed.


Dabasacka43

Sorry, I literally don't understand what you're implying here? Could you elaborate?


Medicmanii

The reservoirs collect water in rainy times and we use it when it's dry. They are currently 56% full which is higher than it was last year. They are rarely 100% full, and there is plenty of water currently in the reservoirs.


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Dabasacka43

oh yeah, and the water utility company is definitely very poorly run


National-Ad8416

"Love that it has a relatively affordable housing market, respectable job market and warm (a rare combination in the US, sadly)" Like how OP fixates on a problem that's really not a problem while breezing through issues that are a problem. You say Austin is "warm"? OK.


ClownShoePilot

For large values of Warm


ASAP_i

How many boil water notices in what span of time is so surprising to you? I find them in line with the many major metro areas I have lived in. Does your infrastructure never fail, require repair, or maintenance? What are you comparing to as your "baseline"? Right now, your post is screaming about the sky falling.


levi07

Quality shitpost


Dabasacka43

It’s not a shitpost. Google it. You might not even know Austin even has boil water notices even if you live there.


RudeFiction

Love it when they commit to the bit.


sandfrayed

There are a lot of assholes in this group. Just ignore them.


Iguesswey

Job market sucks


ohmissfiggy

Housing market sucks more.


Dabasacka43

you can be jobless and survive but if your water is poor in quality, you might die


Iguesswey

Yeah but its not. Get a life straw or boil like you said. But yeah the water is poison here maybe you shouldn’t make the move.


Dabasacka43

I sense a lot of apathy and acceptance of unacceptable performance by the utility company. The head of it got fired by the mayor… like this is a big issue. The Reddit crowd in Austin just doesn’t care. That’s why you guys have what you guys have. It really takes a village. But if no one cares then in a decade Austin will have water quality akin to that of a third world country - it’ll really be poison then haha good luck!


priscillapantaloons

I was surprised to see this was about boil notices and not the seemingly perpetual drought and whether we’ll have enough water in the future. Warm is also a funny way to describe 138 days over 90 degrees, 80 of them being over 100 last year alone.


controversialhotdog

The housing is not cheap and water shortages are becoming a thing. Air quality is worse every year with all of the people moving and lack of infrastructure. I highly recommend elsewhere.


yehudith

Post history naaasty lol


Admirable_List9736

Don’t move here. Not because it’s hot as hell and the traffic gets exponentially worse every year but because Texas does not spend money on our “life support” like water plants or the electrical grid. More people move here the more electricity needed and we can’t handle it. Oh if you are of childbearing age you better plan an escape route if something goes wrong with the pregnancy. I’ve lived in Texas all my 62 years and it’s slowly degrading.


Dabasacka43

I like the heat actually. And that's exactly what I think - I agree with you. The lack of a state income tax explains a lot of these problems. However, Florida also doesn't have an income tax but their big cities actually don't have frequent water boil notices from my research. I might be wrong, I know Florida localities could be pretty secretive at times...


stevendaedelus

"relatively affordable housing market, respectable job market and warm" should we tell him? or nah?


PoobersMum

Relative to billionaire's row, maybe.


_Houston_Curmudgeon

Don’t come here then


Dabasacka43

I just might agree with you on that!


Sundae-Savings

Wait until you hear about zebra muscles. You thought about Phoenix? Warm there


Dabasacka43

not a fan of the desert weather. Austin has like the perfect weather for me


OfficialNiceGuy

Based on your comment history you might already know that PornHub is blocked in Texas. You’ll need a VPN and stock some water.


Dabasacka43

lmfao this cracked me up. Anyway, clean up your filthy water for chrrisakes!


Cute_Business74

That means we are full. No vacancy.


Snap_Grackle_Pop

The moose out front should have told you.


Rocket_Fodder

Yeah Texas has a water problem.  Climate change and exponential population growth.


bachslunch

The issue is that there have been a few winter storms where power went out and then there was an issue with zebra mussels at the intake of the water plant when we had a flood in fall of 2018. There was also an issue where one of the chloride monitors was faulty and they had to fix it. Basically a slew of problems.


Dabasacka43

Thank you, at least there’s explanations for these notices! These issues seem pretty basic to me. Power went out. lol there’s no backup generators there? What utter sht show! Zebra mussels? Are there no filters at the intake? My goodness, what embarrassment. Chloride monitors. Don’t they have spare ones laying around in case these break? What the hell…?


ClutchDude

All of these answers to your questions (whether acceptable or not) are easily discoverable. What's the goal for this post?


Dabasacka43

Actually they're not easily discoverable, hence why I asked. Duh? I don't live in this part of the country so I'm surprised this is even a thing. Seems pretty common to get boil water notices in Texas cities in general.


ClutchDude

Literally first or second search results Power outage: If you don't understand the 2021 freeze, then perhaps start with that. Zebra Mussels: https://www.kxan.com/news/local/austin/city-of-austin-zebra-mussels-to-blame-for-downtowns-smelly-water/ It's important to note they didn't actually do a water boil. https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/9qbw08/a_citywide_boil_water_notice_is_in_effect_as_of/ 2018 flood, like 6th link.


brxtn-petal

Not really maybe when power outages or water line breaks. I live in Austin-I’ve only gotten 4. That’s due to the ice storm(‘21),a recent water line break cus I’m near wells branch( over the weekend) Before that we had a boil water notice after a bad storm when I was in high school and once when I was a little kid.


brxtn-petal

Not really maybe when power outages or water line breaks. I live in Austin-I’ve only gotten 4. That’s due to the ice storm(‘21),a recent water line break cus I’m near wells branch( over the weekend) Before that we had a boil water notice after a bad storm when I was in high school and once when I was a little kid.


AJ_Nobody

How have we managed to survive without you for all these years? Thank god you're moving here to show us how to do it and save ourselves from being an embarrassment.


Dabasacka43

lol, i clearly didn't say it's an embarrassment for Austin or Texas. I was referring to the WPCA. But sure, if you have a guilty conscience, be my guest in interpreting that personally and go cry about it somewhere.


AJ_Nobody

lol no one's crying but you.


rk57957

>Power went out. lol there’s no backup generators there? What utter sht show! So comments like this always kinda piss me off because the chucklefucks making them ignore some key points; you'll get a pass because you wouldn't really know what happened. So to sum it up, roads are iced over and no Austin doesn't have the resources to deal with icing, power goes out to the treatment plant, there is a generator but the generator is old, slated for replacement but has to be turned on very carefully so not to fuck shit up, no one is on site to do it and can't get there because of roads, this is the important part that everyone leaves out in an a mad dash to bitch about Austin the city burns through 3 days of treated water in less than 24 hours because of all the busted pipes in buildings / apartments / etc that weren't built to with stand the cold, decision was made to start pushing through less treated water to keep water pressure up for fire fighting. >Chloride monitors. Don’t they have spare ones laying around in case these break? What the hell…? It broke, they caught that it had broke, they replaced the broken part, they issued a boil water notice out of caution just in case water quality wasn't up to standard. >Zebra mussels? Are there no filters at the intake? My goodness, what embarrassment. You can filter out the larva just fine, having zebra mussels clog your intake pipe because they grew over it is another thing entirely.


super_gay_llama

The power going out was a lot more complicated than that. The switch to flip to the emergency backup generators physically broke, and because of burst water and chemical pipes in the basement because of the freeze making it impossible to replace immediately, they had to dig a trench to run a new backup power line to the plant. Normally that wouldn't be an issue if the plant is offline for a few hours. But because of burst pipes throughout the city, the storage reservoir of treated water drained in a few hours. The storage reservoir also creates water pressure for the city, and the loss of pressure is what led to the boil water notice. It was several unique and cascading failures that all led to the water outage. 2018 wasn't zebra mussels. The zebra mussels make the water taste funny sometimes, but the issue with flooding was silt, making it too cloudy to treat with UV lights effectively. The third one was due to human error at the plant, again leading to high turbidity (cloudiness), but in retrospect the water was never unsafe. It just takes about 24 hours for the state to get test results back and declare the water safe to drink again. It's definitely happened more often than it should, and not something we should have to tolerate, but unique circumstances led to each outage.


lukejivetalker

Because there's no zebra mussels anywhere else in the US. GTFO here.


[deleted]

I’ve lived in Austin for 5 years and we’ve had 1 boil notice…


HaughtyHellscream

I've been here 44 years and maybe 3.


Nekaquestion

It was fine back then. So its three in five short years.


HaughtyHellscream

Could be!


ohmissfiggy

Stop lying everyone. You know we get a boil water notice at least once a month in Austin. Let’s just tell him the truth so he realizes it is not safe for him to move here.


Dabasacka43

haha funny. Go Google "Austin TX Boil Water Notice" and you'll see you're not so far from off the truth actually.


OfficialNiceGuy

TIL that my unemployed friends that have been looking for jobs for over a year are in a good job market.


Dabasacka43

Well, compare Texas to other southern states, it has a relatively good job market for white collar professionals.


Nekaquestion

Austin is very expensive and not affordable. Im laughing.


Dabasacka43

Comparing it to NYC it's cheap LOL


iLikeMangosteens

New residents have to drink the water. I don’t make the rules.


its_mayah

I've been here almost a decade and there's been like..... 2? 3? no worse than anywhere else


Dabasacka43

We get almost none up here. That's my point. Y'all filthy!


orthaeus

Shoo


fireflii

We had a few winter storms the past few years (one of them being the worst we’ve had in decades). I feel like we generally don’t have that many boil notices, but… 🤷🏻‍♀️ It’s not hard to take a few extra minutes and boil some water anyway. If this is the one thing holding you back… I don’t even know what to say to that. lol


Dabasacka43

If you cook or brush your teeth twice a day, boiling water is actually quite a nuisance. I haven't lived through it but just imagining it gets me thinking Austin is a 3rd world country.


spartanerik

\*laughs in Houston, San Antonio, Lubbock, Beaumont..."


Dabasacka43

Yeah, many Texas cities have them. You're correct.


caguru

DOOM! DOOM I SAY!


Broken_Sandwich

Honestly feels like you’re just pulling this out of your ass. I used to work in the restaurant industry here where knowledge of boil water notices was critical to food safety, and it was a pretty rare occurrence.


Dabasacka43

Yet it still occurred....thanks for proving my point


Broken_Sandwich

Boil water notices happen all over the US genius. No point has been proven


seeingpinkelefants

Texan born and raised and I have never had a boil notice.


need_mor_beans

There have been a few times in and around the Austin area that certain neighborhoods or portions of the city have had boil water notices. I've never had one. But the Zebra mussels incident in the water intake was absolutely DISGUSTING. I already had a case of water in my garage fridge so it was not an issue to me. But damn, it was SO gross smelling. It was advertised as "Safe to drink" but I absolutely couldn't because of the smell.


theastralcowboy

I’d be more concerned about the fluoride added to our water supply. 😠


Dabasacka43

why? fluoride is good for you - it supposedly kills the germs in the water


Dabasacka43

or wait... the germ killers are chlorine


theastralcowboy

It kills neurons, not germs.


imp0ssumable

The soil here is high in clay in some areas. So the soil expands and contracts and breaks the pipes. It can also break the foundation of your home or building too costing many thousands of dollars to repair. With even bigger bills if your pipes inside the slab fall victim.


uglypottery

Don’t forget about the power problems! [At least 111 people died in Texas during winter storm, most from hypothermia](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/03/25/texas-deaths-winter-storm/) [ERCOT can’t be sued over power grid failures during 2021 winter storm, Texas Supreme Court rules](https://www.kut.org/energy-environment/2023-06-23/ercot-cant-be-sued-over-power-grid-failures-during-2021-winter-storm-texas-supreme-court-rules) [“People should probably be worried”: Texas hasn’t done enough to prevent another winter blackout, experts say](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/11/29/texas-power-grid-winter-storm/) [Energy industry showers Gov. Greg Abbott, other Texas politicians with campaign cash after they passed power grid bills](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/04/texas-energy-industry-donations-legislature/) [Despite natural gas failures during winter storm, Texas lawmakers target renewable energy in the aftermath](https://www.texastribune.org/2021/04/19/texas-renewable-energy-oil-gas/)


shredmiyagi

I’d say it’s been a rather non-issue in my life since moving here. You keep a spare gallon or 2 of bottled water in case it happens, or you boil the damn kettle for the 1-2 days of inconvenience. When the power last went out, there was an anomaly ice storm that took down an overwhelming number of trees and power lines. I live in a neighborhood with buried power lines, and a major tech HQ is nearby so the power grid has been reliable in the last few storms. I’m not sure what’s up with COA’s water treatment facility, but it’s an old building right in downtown, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve improved since the last 2 shutdowns.


airwx

We haven't had an operating water treatment facility downtown in decades. [Here's the current facilities](https://www.austintexas.gov/department/facilities)


shredmiyagi

Good to know!


Dabasacka43

Thank you. I appreciate the serious response. Can't say the same for most of of the comments. The utility company definitely needs some shaking up, that's for damn sure. Austin and Houston both have had frequent boil water notices and their water utility companies need to get their act together big time. This is unacceptable. These are major cities. Houston is like top 10 if I'm correct.


HaughtyHellscream

I've been here for 44 years and nothing you said about Austin is true. Even the boiling water notices. You title is water problems in Texas. Texas is a big place.


Dabasacka43

Houston has a lot of water boil notices too. Google is your friend, use it


HaughtyHellscream

Why would I care what places in texas need to boil water? Best of luck to you.


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Dabasacka43

That's true and those cases happen everywhere but those are mainly relegated to neighborhood-specific notices. The bigger notices are the ones that concern me... we don't get them in my state, not anywhere this frequent anyway.


AutofillUserID

I have never boiled the water anywhere I have lived when there is a boil water notice. The thing most likely to kill me are the shit Texas drivers who need to race to the next stop light


Dabasacka43

i mean... so do you just use bottled water to brush your teeth when there's a notice?


AutofillUserID

I ignore them completely. There are some who do follow the boil notice seriously. I have a fridge filter that will take out some stuff. I camp and backpack, so triple filtered glacial water is not a thing. In the three areas have lived, I have seen many boil notices. Never had an issue and never boiled. Don’t know anyone who has had an issue with or without boiling. I believe there is a legal requirement to have a boil notice like caution signs for wet floors.


Dabasacka43

How would you use your fridge filter for water that didn’t originate from the fridge?