Recent News & Notices

Good afternoon Prairie Grove: It’s officially summer. It’s hot and it’s dry, and lots of folks are spending time outside using water.  Unfortunately, just like last summer, that means we’re exceeding the capacity of the system to supply water. Over the past week, the storage tanks at the Sherwood Forest well have been starting each day about a half foot lower than the day before – and the problem is accelerating. As we’ve said before, even without this increased usage, the well is unable to supply enough water for needs during the day, but it is generally able to recover overnight when usage is low. Unfortunately, as daily demand increases, it has outstripped the ability of the well to fully replenish the tank levels overnight. Unless we all begin immediately practicing the protocol in the Stage 5 Drought Contingency Plan that was implemented in the Summer of 2022 (which has remained active), then we will almost certainly have a system shutdown before the weekend is over. We’ve provided a graph of the Ground Storage Tank levels over the past two weeks (blue line).  Based on this pattern and expected demand, we’ve projected (orange line) that levels will likely bottom out very quickly over the weekend.  Once the system drops below eight feet (red line), we’ve reached the critical point and we must shut down the system to allow it to fully recover. We have partially closed the outgoing valves from the plant to approximately 15% of normal levels to attempt to slow the demand, but that will not be enough. It will take your help as well. Some things we MUST all begin doing immediately to prevent the system going into emergency operations mode, which will include temporary shutdowns of the system as we have seen over the past few […]

May 30, 2023 The Angelina & Neches River Authority (ANRA) has been the official owner of the Prairie Grove water system since July of 2022. Since ANRA’s initial involvement in September of 2020, crews have made numerous repairs and fixed dozens of water leaks. ANRA has spent a significant amount of time studying and learning the water system as we planned for upgrades that will ultimately create a new water system that meets all state and federal regulatory requirements. All during this process, ANRA has been open and transparent about the ongoing deficiencies and severely degraded condition of the current system as well as what has to happen to bring the water system into compliance. In order to accomplish this, ANRA has to replace the two water treatment plants and 85% of the distribution system. ANRA has worked very hard to secure grants that will enable customers to avoid having to pay for the majority of the costs of construction for the new water system. We have successfully secured a 70% grant for the project Future Improvements In January of this year, ANRA submitted the final components of the application for funding to the Texas Water Development Board (TWDB). The final application amount was $7.7 million. The proposed project will contain the following elements: Construction of a new 8” water supply line and master meter from the City of Diboll; Construction of a new booster station capable of serving 500 residential water customers; Replacement of 85% of the existing distribution system; Creation of a looped distribution system by constructing water lines that connect from FM 1818 and Buttermilk Rd, down to the intersection CC Rd, and back to FM 1818; Installation of fire hydrants at key locations. It is important to note that the project has not yet been fully […]