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The Old Water Tower

Photos courtesy Margaret Chatham.

Grant will help Seadrift install a new water system

Louise Popplewel; The Victoria Advocate, 1998

SEADRIFT - Ask almost anyone in Seadrift and they'll tell you the drinking water is salty, dirty-looking and just plain awful.

"It's horrible, we don't drink it at all," said Walter Wooldridge, who has lived in the town of 1,000 since 1951.

The residents' water worries will soon be cleared up.

Claiborn Crain, public affairs adviser for the Rural Utilities Service, presented city officials with $1.27 million Tuesday to install a new water system.

The money, $280,000 in a federal grant and $990,000 in a low-interest loan, was one of 54 projects that is part of Water 2000, a nationwide rural water improvement effort.

It will pay for a well, a treatment plant, thousands of feet of piping and a new water tower to replace the rusty, leaking 72-year-old structure that's in such poor shape no one is willing to climb it for maintenance.

Billy Tyson, a Calhoun County employee, said, "The last time I climbed it, rust was coming off in my hand it would just break off in my hand."

Tyson said Seadrift's tower wasn't always in bad shape.

"About 15 years ago, we had the best drinking water, then there was a dry spell and it's been down ever since. My family doesn't drink it. You can't make coffee or tea out of it."

Typson said some of the problems are caused by rusty pipes and pressure.

A bucket of tap water taken Tuesday afternoon resembled weak tea. Sometimes, it gets darker.

And it ruins clothes.

Jennifer Krenek and D Intorcia spent the hot afternoon doing laundry at the Seadrift laundromat on Tuesday afternoon were a lot better than washing clothes at home, they said.

"Clothes get cleaner here because of the water softener." Intocia said.

Krenek added, "Seadrift's water is rusty, brown. When you wash a white shirt, the whole shirts becomes that color. Colored clothes get stains on them. It ruins clothes. It wears them fast."

"If we could drink the water here it would be especially nice even if the rates do go up," Intorcia said.

And they will. The city is going into debt to get its new water system, and residents will surely have to pay more for water but Mayor Mark Daniel said he has little opposition to the plan.

"This project has been pre-engineered," Daniel said. "Hope to finish plans in 30 days we will be ready to proceed - go out for bids."

Daniels did not know how they construction would take.

Present Day

Since 1998, Seadrift has adopted a new water system. Recently Margaret Chatham shared her experience regarding the old water tower. Pictured above are shots Margaret took right outside of her backyard. March 18, 1998 marked the last day the water tower loomed over Seadrift, Texas. She remembers vividly the day.

"In the second photo you can barely see the cable they tied to the tower," she expressed, "The crew began rocking it back and forth, back and forth. I was fearful it would fall on our house. That was my only real concern."

Alas, the tower didn't take long to fall, as its condition were poor. Present day, Seadrift is much better off. The new system was installed and remains outside of her backyard.