ALVORD, Texas — Melvin Pewitt didn’t waste any time reporting water pooling from underground outside his home. He’s lived on Lynch Drive in Alvord for more than five years. Since it hadn’t rained much, he knew something was wrong.
"When I found it, there was just water bubbling out of the ground,” Melvin Pewitt said, “I watched the driveway, the water got up over my sidewalk and I washed it all off. It didn’t get to the house.”
Alvord Utility crews have since replaced the dirt they dug up to get to a broken pipe underground.
Alvord Mayor Caleb Caviness is in his first term. He decided to run for Mayor hoping to make a difference in their small security. Caviness explained what caused the leak he says was just a half-inch break on one of their pipes he knows needs replacing in the future.
“We're on a groundwater source here in Alvord," Mayor Caleb Caviness said, “We're an older community. We've got some older lines in the ground. The earth shifted a little bit and created a leak.”
Mayor Caviness said that also meant draining the water tower, resulting in their third boil water notice this year.
“So the boil water notice is kind of a precautionary thing just to make sure that everything's clean and safe for people before we just release everything back out,” the mayor said.
The notice meant taking safety measures for teachers, staff and students in Alvord schools too.
Part of the statement from Superintendent Dr. Randy Brown said "...we treat this seriously and take precautionary measures... We purchase water for students to drink at school, but we also allow parents to send water to school."
By law, Alvord’s water must be tested before putting the water tower back online, which they hope to do by midweek. But this is just one step for Caviness who is hoping to improve water utility services altogether in his community. Especially since residents are turning to him now for the future.
"We get some negative feedback from time to time. One of those is every once in a while, somebody will get some brown water in their sink or in their tub, and that is certainly nothing that we want to see. But it actually helps us in a way when somebody sends us a picture of brown water or something and that kind of gives us a leg to stand on with some of the grant boards. We can say, look, we have this impending issue. We need some help getting it fixed," said Mayor Caleb Caviness.
Since old underground pipes are an issue in Alvord, the Mayor hopes they have fewer boil water notices in the future.
"We're working towards grants and things like that because we know it's an issue," said Caviness, "It's just going to take time and money. One of the cool things about Wise County is that, I'm sure other places do this, too, but Wise County is actually put together what they call the Wise County Coalition of Mayors. We get together and talk about issues that maybe we're having on the north side of the county that they're not having on the south side of the county."
The Mayor plans to send the water samples in for testing on Tuesday since state employees took Monday off in recognition of Veteran's Day. Test results according to the Caviness usually take 24 hours to complete.