Cruz Cuellar stands next to the trailer holding the water tank that, for years, she and her husband took to a nearby town several times a week to fill Cruz Cuellar stands next to the trailer holding the water tank that, for years, she and her husband took to a nearby town several times a week to fill because it was cheaper than water hauled in by truckers. Cuellar said it is “probably what messed up our backs. Now that we’re old, we have a hard time trying to collect what we already work for.” (Photo by John Leos/Cronkite Borderlands Project)
This story was originally published by Cronkite News.
For years, Cruz Cuellar has been afraid to light candles in her house.
Sometimes, one of her granddaughters will try to light an aromatic candle to enjoy the scent wafting through the house. “No, no, no, no, we’re not risking it,” she would say. Cuellar has three fire extinguishers in and around her small home located in a community that had no running water.
She’s lived there for almost three decades, but never had a fire hydrant near her house until this year. The closest one was on top of a hill a quarter of a mile away, accessible only by a dirt road.
Now, there are two new, silver fire hydrants standing outside Cuellar’s home, easing her anxiety about safety in the home where she’s raising seven grandchildren.
“I’ll go in peace knowing that my grandkids will have water, and they’re not going to have to go through everything that we went through,” she said.
Cuellar lives in an El Paso County colonia called Cochran. For three decades, the tiny community of fewer than 100 people lacked critical infrastructure: paved roads, street signs, a sewage system, waste collection and running water.
Two weeks ago, for the first time, Cuellar and the entire Cochran community got water service.
Colonias are rural, unincorporated communities along the U.S.-Mexico border without basic services. The majority of colonia residents are Latino and living on lower incomes. Many of them have lived there for generations after family members came to the U.S. as guest workers or undocumented immigrants seeking their slice of the American dream. The vast majority of people who now live in colonias are U.S. citizens.
More than 90% of colonias in the U.S. are in Texas, which has the largest colonias population; more than 350,000 people live in nearly 1,900 designated Texas colonias. Some of the state’s most impoverished and disenfranchised communities live there, according to government data analyzed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Arizona had the second-most colonias residents, with more than 278,000 living in 104 colonias, according to a 2015 report by the Rural Community Assistance Partnership.
In colonias across the Southwest, including Texas, more than 134,000 residents lack access to safe, clean, running water or sewer services — or both — according to researchers’ estimates.
Many of those residents were sold land by developers decades ago that didn’t have connections to water, sewage or electrical infrastructure.
And it was legal.
Residents like Cuellar have spent decades advocating for themselves, asking various government agencies to find a way to connect them to a water district. Residents of other colonias have had success sooner: Nearby Agua Dulce has had water for years. From Cuellar’s home, you can see houses in Agua Dulce. Houses protected by their proximity to fire hydrants.
Before this month, Cochran residents were never connected to a water utility district. They had to pay to have water hauled in trucks and buy cases of bottled water to drink. Students and researchers at the University of Texas at El Paso also set up systems for residents that catch rainwater.
Residents of Cochran have had to adapt. They take short showers, and many don’t drink the tap water from hauled in water. Some residents reuse water to wash laundry three or four times and then toss the brown leftovers onto their trees. Nurturing houseplants with water is a luxury that few indulge; as are watering front and backyards. One resident, 59-year-old Rosalina Duran, said she spent four to six hours a week managing water issues. Sometimes, she didn’t have enough water to put in the toilet.
For decades, driving into Cochran has required off-roading on a hilly, dusty, brown desert road filled with trash. Empty water bottles, used car tires, paper, couches and mattresses blanket the desert terrain around Cochran. In the summer, the tires well up with water, attracting mosquitos, and posing a public health concern. Since Cochran didn’t have water, residents and researchers say, El Paso County didn’t offer the community trash collection services.
‘They abandoned us’
The lack of water service kept the community stuck in a vicious cycle; Cochran residents were ineligible or overlooked for government funds that could bring them paved roads, trash collection, or street signs.
Even now it isn’t Texas government officials who are bringing the residents of Cochran water — it is two nonprofits: AYUDA, a local grassroots organization that works in colonias, and DigDeep, a human rights group from California that serves rural communities that lack water.
AYUDA – for Adult and Youth United Development Association – was founded and operated by colonias residents in nearby San Elizario and has helped residents advocate for themselves for years. But no government entity at the local, state or federal responded by providing the funds necessary to bring water to Cochran.