Marlin work crews find several underground water leaks, causing severe water loss citywide

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - The city of Marlin has been plagued with water issues for years, constantly dealing with everything from water main breaks to unclean drinking water.

Most recently the city has had to issue a disaster declaration due to severe water loss from several unidentified leaks in their distribution system.

According to the city they’ve been losing on average three million gallons of water a day. For comparison, the city normally uses on average two million gallons of water a day.

The city’s Director of Public Works, Scott Fornash, says they’re doing their best to locate and repair the leaks, but that this is part of a bigger issue.

“Marlin seems to have a rep on water stuff and the city is working very hard to try and get us out of it, it’s just long time that ain’t nothing been done,” Fornash shared, “we’re starting to get stuff done, but it’s just the age of everything that’s catching up to them”.

For the last three weeks now, marlin has been losing water because of a combination of leaks citywide.

“We’ve got leaks that we have not been able to find, they haven’t surfaced themselves,” he explained, “over the last three weeks we found eight, we found three major ones today that we’re working on”.

Fornash shared that they are working as quickly as they can to repair the leaks they have found.

“We are starting to gain on towers, but we won’t know if this is going to complete fix, we’re going to keep looking as we keep adding pressure to the city and it’s just going to be an ongoing thing probably all week long,” he said.

As crews continue to look for more leaks and make repairs, they will be shutting off service valves, meaning some will be without water temporarily.

“We’ll be shutting off as the leaks are found… to repair the leaks, but we won’t be able to give much notice to businesses or houses just due to the nature and the speed that we’re trying to get these leaks fixed to get the city back into water,” says Fornash.

Some residents are already without water due to the low levels, which is why former council member John Armstrong is opening up his church to water donations.

“I received a call from a resident, as well as some church members, saying they were out of water,” Armstrong shared, “and then we enacted collecting water procedures so that we can get some water coming in”.

The Christ of Church of Marlin, located on 221 Williams Street, is now accepting water donations from anyone who’s able to donate. Anyone wanting to donate can reach out to Pastor Armstrong at 214-535-1729.

He says they hope to start handing out and delivering water as soon as they are able.

“As soon as we start getting the water in we’re first going to look at targeting the elderly… and if anyone needs water, anyone, we’ll have some here,” he shared.

In the meantime, residents are asked to keep conserving water and report any signs of an underground leak to the city to the Marlin police dispatch.

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