This story was initially printed by Grist. You can subscribe to its weekly newsletter here.

With 2 million Houston residents now having to boil water to cook dinner and clear after an influence outage at a water remedy plant, Texas continues its historical past of energy grid failures and poor water high quality.

On Sunday, a water remedy plant lost power and triggered water stress to drop beneath the required minimal requirements wanted to take care of clear water. Power has been restored to the plant, however testing for water contamination has begun and outcomes are nonetheless being gathered. By late Sunday night time, residents began to obtain discover to boil their water earlier than use.

“We still have no indication that the system was compromised at any point,” Houston Public Works Director Carol Haddock told the Texas Tribune.

Officials in Houston have tried to quell issues concerning the outage. Haddock stated the lack of energy, attributable to a failure of a transformer and its backup, hasn’t proven any catastrophic potential that any bigger blight to the town’s water provide has occurred. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said his workplace believes the town’s water is secure, however they’re nonetheless required to concern notices due to the stress drop. But, criticism from residents a couple of lack of immediate, clear communication has rolled in. Mayor Turner backed the decision to warn residents hours after the preliminary outage occurred.

Residents are encouraged to boil water to a rolling boil for not less than two minutes earlier than utilizing it for cooking, bathing, or consuming. Those who can’t boil water are requested to make use of bottled water, however space grocery shops are already selling out of bottled water. The discover might expire as early as this morning.

Houston, the nation’s fourth most populous metropolis, gives water to an estimated 2.2 million folks. On Monday, Houston colleges, restaurants, and businesses had been closed as a result of boil discover. Cities that get their water wholesale from Houston additionally issued warnings to residents.

Boil notices will not be new to Texas, a state that, based on the Environmental Protection Agency, has essentially the most water high quality violations within the nation. Two years in the past, freezing temperatures in Texas wrecked the state’s power grid and left thousands and thousands of residents with out secure water, even inflicting hospitals to lose entry to water. Winter energy grid failures in Texas have left minority neighborhoods in the dark earlier than, at disproportionate charges, whereas prosperous residents had entry to energy and water. Past studies of the state’s energy grid present that it’s woefully underprepared for excessive climate circumstances.

Water high quality specialists in Texas cite the state’s aging infrastructure as a supply of continued issues and concern for entry to scrub consuming water, particularly in rural areas and communities of colour. Before Houston’s current water boil discover, the agricultural east Texas city of Zalla had been wrestling with an virtually two-week-long boil discover this month, attributable to failing infrastructure within the city of 700. In 2020, Houston skilled one other water boil advisory after a main water pipe broke.