no-win waterscapesjul 14 2014a texas a&m researcher measures water security in the rio grande valleymost americans take for granted the ability to turn on a faucet when thirsty or to fill a pot for cooking but a texas a&m researcher has found that segments of the population especially along the texas-mexican border exist in a no-win waterscape with no easy access to clean water no ability to pay for it and no immediate solution the issue says wendy jepson an associate professor in the college of geosciences is a matter of water security defined as the ability for individuals to access acceptable affordable and adequate drinking water for a healthy lifemore than 400 000 people live in 2 300 colonias along the border in a region that is one of poorest in the united states with more than a third of the families living below the us federal poverty level and despite the perception of ubiquitous water availability in the united states jepson says that the reality has left many colonias residents in a position of water insecuritywith funding from the national science foundation and help of staff from the colonias program in texas a&ms college of architecture jepson systematically interviewed and surveyed the people who actually spend a large part of their incomes trying to obtain clean water for their familiesjepson developed a three-dimensional approach that identifies water access affordability and quality through a measurement called a guttman scalogram this method provides a socially and scientifically sound measurement that allows us to document discuss and create policy interventions jepson saysout of the households interviewed jepson and her team determined that fewer than half (45 percent) were water secure or marginally water secure fifty-percent were identified as marginally insecure or insecure jepson explains that a combination of factors affect household water insecurity in some cases it is a matter of impure waterit smells or is dirty off-color or tastes bad in other households it can be a matter of infrastructure such as no hook-up or a broken one economically it can simply be the inability to pay the bill the recommended percentage for water bills in the united states is no more than 2 percent of monthly income but in some cases families are paying 8 percent or more when your household income is less than $1 000 a month paying the water bill can take a big bite out of your paycheck she saysmany households jepson says have turned to water vendors which may not provide water of higher quality furthermore access to these vendors costs too in terms of gas or ability to transport the water back homealthough the infrastructure has improved over the yearsjepson has been researching social issues in the rio grande valley since her undergraduate daysher research reveals that a lack of trust for municipal water persists with more information and policies in place that better regulate water quality and accessibility i hope we can change both the perception and the realityjepson says that although she has only researched the colonias in hidalgo and el paso counties the similar problems exist even in communities near large urban areas like houston look at detroit she says the city is shutting off residential water because some of its citizens cannot afford the high fees meanwhile industries owe several months in back payments with no consequences the united nations recognizes access to safe and clean drinking water as a human right the least we can do in this country is to ensure the same for our citizens note: since dr jepson's study was released several media outlets have interviewed her she participated in the texas tribune symposium on water to discuss colonia water insecurity she was also interviewed twice by texas tribune about water security on the border and on undrinkable water in houston suburbs she is also an invited speaker for a panel on water at the 2015 texas tribune festival in october follow her on twitter: @professorjepson more about her research can be found on her profile page a video on the geosciences youtube channel portrays jepson's research dr wendy jepson has been researching water equity and governance for over 20 years in the lower rio grande region