Community of San Simon without water for second time within a year

SAN SIMON, Ariz. (KGUN) — Access to water makes life possible in remote desert locations. But in a small community in eastern Arizona, residents haven't had water or plumbing available since Saturday night.

Crews are hard at work Monday in San Simon, Ariz., working to restore access to a well that provides nearly 350 people with water.

San Simon resident Judy White hopes her faith in a working water pump pays off soon.

"I'm gonna have faith that they get it done," White says.

"Apparently we took a power surge at some point, and it put a hole on the casing of the motor," Chuck Fickett, chairman of the San Simon Water Improvement District explains.

"It wound up shorting the motor out," says Fickett.

This is the second time within a year that San Simon has lost its water access.

"The infrastructure, our lines, are bad. Our well is bad, so we're trying to get a new well," Fickett says.

While Fickett says help could be on the way from the state, the biggest hurdle right now is time.

"The state is, with ADEQ (Arizona Department of Environmental Quality) and funding that they have available, they are working to get us another well," Fickett tells me. "And that's in the process but, as things go, that doesn't move too fast."

For now, bottled water is available at the local fire house as San Simon's tight-knit community continues looking out for neighbors.

"We really appreciate that we can come and get not just the drinking water, but water for our personal bathrooms and stuff," says White.

In the mean time, this pump repair will take a significant chunk out of the water district's already-small budget.

"This fix is gonna cost us about $8,000," says Fickett. "Our income is about $60,000 a year."

Town officials told me they expect access to the well to be restored later this evening, and they advise water customers to boil any water coming out of the tap for now, just in case.