Colonia residents struggle to pay for safe, healthy infrastructure
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EL PASO – Two years after getting help to improve the quality of water storage and waste management, Cuadrilla – a small, unincorporated community on the far eastern edge of the Lower Valley – still struggles with infrastructure problems that residents say they can’t afford to maintain. This colonia is made up of a couple hundred people that, before the septic and water tanks were installed, used to get their water from a nearby canal. But the water in the canal has high levels of salt, which damages containers and is too polluted for safe consumption, residents said. Up until recent years the Cuadrilla residents did not have any source of clean water, until a local nonprofit organization called AYUDA provided them with septic and water tanks. Before the organization helped them install the septic tanks for their homes properly, the residents of the Cuadrilla community used improvised septic tanks and outhouses that most of the time were left uncovered and were unsafe.