Big Bend National Park, the crown jewel of West Texas, has issued a dire warning about a “critical water shortage,” which may cause a closure in the park.
In a press statement sent out Jan. 3, park officials said that water pumps in its Oak Spring “failed completely.” This is the only source of water for the park’s scenic Chisos Basin.
Additionally, a backup pump was out of the park for repairs and, therefore, unavailable for use in the emergency, according to the statement.
The park immediately enacted Stage 2 restrictions to conserve stored water in Chisos Basin tanks.
“The park is urgently trying to expedite repair of the pumps, and there is no current timeline for when that repair will occur (but it is expected to take several weeks, at best),” park officials said.
Meanwhile, the park asks that campers, lodge guests and other visitors to conserve water so that the Basin “can stay open for as long as possible.”
“When water levels in the storage tanks drop to the minimum needed for firefighting, closure of the area may be required,” officials said.
The Oak Spring water pumps are slated for rightsizing and replacement under the Great American Outdoors Act of 2020, a piece of legislation originally proposed in 2019 by the late U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Georgia, who’s also known for his civil rights activism. The bill garnered bipartisan support in both chambers before being signed into law by President Donald Trump.
Thanks to the law, Big Bend has plans for an upcoming project to rehabilitate the water distribution system for the Chisos Basin.
“This emergency illustrates the importance of that project,” officials said in their press statement.
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