NewsWest 9
EUNICE, N.M. - Water conservation is a big deal in Eunice, New Mexico and after losing over two million gallons of water over the past few days, conserving water in Eunice is even more important than before. The line broke sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning causing many people to be without water.
Matthew McCasland, a resident of Eunice, told NewsWest 9 what trouble he went through the night the line break happened, "I had to draw a bunch of water for drinking and flushing the toilet and I couldn't take a shower, so I just had to do what I had to do. Everyone probably had to do that."
Eunice Mayor, Matt White, said, "We had a construction company that was putting in an oil pipeline of a gas pipeline, they had actually got permission to go underneath our pipeline a couple of days ago, they had dug underneath it. Somehow, somebody ran over the line after they put it in and it probably gave and it broke a 14 inch water main."
Eunice has two major water pipelines. But once one of the water lines broke, it managed to vacuum dirt and gravel inside.
"So we had to shut the whole water system off, get that line fixed and then we flushed the whole system to get all of the dirt and gravel out of there," White said.
Water crews worked overnight to fix the problem and say the water pressure will be at full capacity by Thursday evening.
"The line was fixed and now we're just getting our pressure back up to speed. It takes about 12 hours or so because there's about four to five million gallons of water in that line," White said.
Although the line is fixed, Eunice still faces the issue of sustainable water management.
"We still ask everybody to conserve water, please. Our drinking water, we have 40 to 50 years worth of drinking water left in our system. After that, we don't know what we're going to have," White said.
LeAnn Dean, a school teacher in Eunice, stressed the importance of conserving water.
