The Associated Press
SAN ANTONIO — Environmental officials ordered a contractor to scale back the fighting of a massive mulch fire Thursday after two nearby residents found cloudy, smoky-smelling water pouring from their taps.
The residents were drawing water from private wells, not the public water system, but they draw from the same aquifer that feeds water to San Antonio and nearby counties, some 1.7 million people in all.
Officials decided to wait for water test results before continuing to extinguish the blaze, which started on Christmas and layered the city of Helotes in smoke for days, said Terry Clawson, spokesman for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.
“We don’t want to trade off an air quality problem for a water quality problem,” San Antonio Water System spokeswoman Anne Hayden said.
Preliminary test results could be available as early as Friday. Meanwhile, the contractor, Oil Mop LLC, is only spraying enough water to keep the smoke down, Clawson said.