Brownsville issues ordinance limiting car washes

BROWNSVILLE, Texas (ValleyCentral) — Brownsville has issued a city ordinance limiting new car washes after a record drought has dropped water levels across the Valley.

The ordinance restricts new car washes from being built within 5 miles of one another, which are part of efforts by city leaders to help with decreasing water levels.

“Currently, the water level is at 22.2," said City of Brownsville Emergency Management Officer Odee Leal.  “We are urging all city residents to try to conserve as much water as possible to avoid us going into stage three, which will have a lot more constraints of water.”

The ordinance requires new car washes to use recycled water systems.

“Six of the 34 car washes in the city of Brownsville utilize the reuse of the water systems which actually recycle water, so that is a very low number for the city of Brownsville and that is the reason that we as a community and our city commissions decided that we needed to be able to start conserving water."

Current car washes are grandfathered and are not subject to the ordinance.

Companies like CircleK add car washes to older establishments and will have to re-budget due to the ordinance.

“Mostly it will affect prices, maybe on the budget and how I set on the app, or maybe on the single-use car washes," said Jorge Maldonado, CircleK Brownsville Employee.

Maldonado thinks the ordinance will deter companies like his from building in the area.

"From what I'm seeing maybe the future of Circle K is not going to be able to have car washes, maybe because of the water and all that; the water lows that are happening.”