The Car Wash/Drought Blues

Last week, McAllen became the third city in South Texas to impose a carwash ordinance that regulates the future growth of commercial locations.

The other two cities to have already passed similar ordinances include Brownsville and Edinburg.

The two counties in which the three cities sit — Cameron and Hidalgo — issued a disaster declaration last April, which has led to more serious water-conservation considerations, such as new ordinances related to the establishment of new commercial car washes. In some cities, these days, one car wash is located, literally, right across the street from the other. Meaning, they may not be as lucrative as an Edcouch casino (prior to the raids by law enforcement), but at least they’re legal and making some serious change for there to be so many.

Modern-day car washes have a water-recycling system, so water waste is kept to a minimum, but it’s the number of them popping up as well as their relatively low prices that has cities cracking down on them or at least considering ways to regulate growth by proximity.

In the old days, even those old self-serve car washes — still some around — cost at least $4 by the time you got done plugging quarters into the slots to wash the vehicle. Then you had to spend time and more money drying it yourself.

These days, the car washes that are going up are drive-thru, and the dryer at the end is so strong, that most times, no hand drying is required.

At many locations, you can get a pass for $19.99, which gets you an unlimited number of washes for the entire month. That includes free vacuums and towel exchanges (if required).

Meaning, that the people who used to wash their car or truck every second or third week, third month, now do so on a weekly basis. Never has the business of washing your own car been so cheap.

No rain, so wash away. And they do. According to one city manager whose city has not yet passed such an ordinance, but is currently looking at that option, his truck used to be so dirty after going to the ranch that he’d let it stay dirty for a while, because for him to wash it, well, it was a job that took more time than he was usually willing to offer.

A thrifty guy, by his own admission, he stayed away from the full-service car washes that now cost upwards of $30 for a single pickup wash, by the time you include the vacuuming.

With these new places, however, he goes at least once a week, sometimes more often if his truck really needs it.

“And that’s the real problem. You have more people washing their vehicles than ever before simply because the price is so low.”

If you look online for “car wash studies,” most suggest that car washes use less water than doing it at home with a water hose.

Said this city manager: “That’s because those studies use a hose that has the water constantly running out of the end. But if you use a hose with one of those valves at the hand, where you have to depress the trigger to release the water, it’s not as much as the studies show.”

The three cities — Brownsville, Edinburg, and McAllen — have different distances between future car washes based on how the cities are mapped out and the wording of their respective car-wash ordinances, but at least the days of building one right across the street are gone. At least in three cities so far — Brownsville, Edinburg, and McAllen.

This summer, the RGV water stakeholders (AKA, anyone in the RGV who uses a drop of water) didn’t get the tropical rainfall hoped for by some, prayed for by others. The two water reservoirs that feed South Texas, Amistad and Falcon, currently share a combined storage that is only 20 percent of full.

In the disaster declaration announced this past April, Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez mentioned in a related press release that the drought conditions in South Texas “pose an imminent and continuous threat of widespread or severe damage, injury or loss of life or property and to public health, municipal water supplies, and agricultural production.”

Based on the stubborn drought in both South Texas and northern Mexico, the water conditions moving into 2025 are going to present more of a challenge for elected officials, farmers, citrus growers, and developers.

Where’s the water going to come from to feed the growth, much less service those customers already here without a rate increase to limit the use?

To make matters even more intense, this winter, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has predicted that South Texas, and by extension, northern Mexico, will be unseasonably warm.

Chances of rain?

Below average.