Rio Grande Valley Water Case -- View TCEQ Consideration of Our Request for Emergency Order

On November 5, 2008, San Antonio Attorney Trey Wilson presented a request for Emergency Order to the Commissioners of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. The requested Order was intended to direct the East Rio Hondo Water Supply Corporation to restore water service to RL Wilson, P.C. Law Firm Clients Carl & Janel Parker and Carolina Ruiz. The Parkers and Mrs. Ruiz are elderly residents of Cameron County whose water service was terminated by East Rio Hondo Water when the residents refused to grant punitive easements requested by the utility.

On October 20, 2008 -- approximately 2 weeks prior to the TCEQ Agenda Meeting -- a staff attorney with the TCEQ issued a memorandum opining that the actions of East Rio Hondo Water were illegal. In the memorandum, the TCEQ staff attorney recommended that the TCEQ issue the Emergency Order requested by Trey Wilson. The final sentence of the Legal Recommendation of the staff memorandum was "The WSC has various avenues available to it, such as trying to work out an agreement with the customers or using its eminent domain powers, but terminating the customers' service is not one of them."

Undaunted, East Rio Hondo persisted in its illegal deprivation of water service to our clients. On November 5, 2008, the utility was called to task about its actions. The following Agenda item was considered at the TCEQ Commissioners' Agenda Meeting of November 5, 2008:

EMERGENCY ORDER

Item 73. TCEQ Docket No. 2008-1646-UCR. Consideration of a request by Carl & Janel Parker and Carolina Ruiz for an emergency order to require East Rio Hondo Water Supply Corporation to provide continuous and adequate water service pursuant to Section 13.041 of the Texas Water Code and Title 30, Section 291.14 of the Texas Administrative Code. East Rio Hondo Water Supply Corporation provides retail water service in Cameron County, Texas, under Certificate of Convenience and Necessity No. 11552. (Stefanie Skogen, Lisa Fuentes)

In the end, the TCEQ issued the Emergency Order, and our firm's clients' water was restored with State intervention. But East Rio Hondo didn't go down without a fight. The video of the fight is somewhat entertaining. To view a video of the TCEQ Commissioners' discussion of this item, Click HERE.