Arlington, Texas Water Outage Today

Who runs the water in Arlington: system profile

The system behind most taps in Arlington is City of Arlington, which EPA records list as serving roughly 413,955 people. Customers know it as Arlington Water Utilities; the name on your bill is the one to call.

Source water and treatment in Arlington

Tap water in Arlington starts as surface water. City of Arlington takes it from 1 - Pierce Burch, Tarrant County Wcid, and Richland-Chambers and runs it through treatment before it reaches the mains. After treatment the water is held in 15 storage tanks and reservoirs and pushed uphill by 25 pump facilities; that storage is the buffer that keeps taps running for a few hours after a pump or main fails.

Why this matters when the water stops. A surface-water system depends on its plant staying online. If the plant, the raw-water pumps or the power feeding them fails, pressure can fall across the entire service area at once, and a precautionary boil notice tends to cover whole zones rather than the single street of a main break.

What causes water outages and low pressure in Arlington

These are the causes that match the record for Arlington, listed roughly in order of how much they matter here.

• Freezing weather. Arlington sees about 29 days a year with a low at or below 32°F, and 2 days at or below 20°F. The coldest morning in the 2015 through 2025 record came on February 16, 2021. The longest stretch with highs that never rose above freezing ran 5 days, ending February 18, 2021. Frozen service lines and meters cause single-address outages, while ground frost and thaw cycles crack older mains and produce the street-wide breaks.
• Summer demand. Arlington has about 67 days a year at or above 95°F and 35 at or above 100°F, and the hottest day in the record came on July 21, 2018. Lawn irrigation and cooling push demand to its yearly high, so pumps run hard, tanks drain faster than they refill and pressure sags on high ground in the evening.
• Storm-driven power loss. Thunderstorm wind, hail and tornado reports in Tarrant County number 835 since 2015. Pump stations and treatment plants that depend on Oncor run on the electric grid, so a storm that downs power lines can lower water pressure even when no pipe is damaged.
• Flooding and heavy rain. NOAA logged 124 flood, flash flood and heavy rain reports in Tarrant County from 2015 through 2026, and 8 days a year bring an inch of rain or more. Flooding is hard on water systems in three ways: it erodes soil around pipe crossings, drowns pumps and electrical equipment, and can let contaminated runoff into the mains, which triggers precautionary boil notices.
• Younger pipe, different risks. Only 15% of occupied homes in Arlington predate 1970 (US 35.5%), so more of the network is newer plastic or ductile iron. Breaks tend to come from construction damage, pressure surges and weather rather than age.
• Digging and utility work. Street projects, fiber installation and excavation near buried pipe regularly cut mains in Arlington with no warning, usually on a day with perfectly ordinary weather.

Freeze, heat and rain: the Arlington weather record

Main break season in Arlington runs from late fall into early spring, with the coldest stretch around December through February.

These counts come from a gridded reanalysis, which smooths out single-day extremes and can differ by a few degrees from an airport thermometer. Use them to compare seasons and years, not as official station records.

Arlington boil water notices and EPA compliance record

Since 2015, EPA's record for City of Arlington shows no health-based violations. It also lists 2 monitoring or reporting entries that are about paperwork rather than water quality, such as a missed sample or a late report.

Most recent entries, all monitoring or reporting:

• January 2020: A missed or late monitoring or reporting requirement (lead and copper) It is marked resolved.
• August 2015: A missed or late monitoring or reporting requirement (coliform bacteria testing) It is marked resolved.

Boil water notices in Arlington are precautions, not findings. When pressure drops, Arlington Water Utilities tells affected customers to boil water until two rounds of lab tests are clean, a process that normally takes 24 to 48 hours after service is restored, under oversight from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ).

Lead service lines and old plumbing in Arlington

The most recent 90th-percentile lead result filed for City of Arlington is 1 ppb (2023). The federal action level is 15 ppb, so that result is comfortably below it.

15% of occupied homes in Arlington were built before 1970, and lead service lines and solder stayed legal until the federal ban in 1986. After any outage that disturbs the pipes, run the cold tap 30 seconds to 2 minutes before drinking, and ask Arlington Water Utilities about its lead service line inventory.

How long a water outage lasts in Arlington

Most repairs of an ordinary main break in Arlington take half a day once the crew is on site. Bigger mains, deep bury and busy roads stretch that to a day or more. With 413,955 people on the system, a break on a main that feeds a whole district can leave thousands of homes dry at once, and crews may close valves several blocks away to isolate it.

Arlington Water Utilities will post an estimated restoration time for a break that affects many customers; ask for the repair crew's estimate when you call.

Preparing for a long water outage in Arlington

The average household in Arlington has about 2.8 people, so FEMA's minimum of one gallon per person per day comes to roughly 8 gallons for three days and 39 gallons for two weeks.

• Heat: 67 days a year top 95°F here, so plan for more than the one-gallon minimum, and keep extra for pets.
• A standard water heater is a ready-made 40-gallon reserve. Shut off its power or gas, open a hot tap somewhere in the house, and draw from the drain valve.
• Fill a tub or large containers early for toilets, cleaning and handwashing, and store drinking water separately in clean bottles.

Water systems near Arlington, side by side

Water outage pages for nearby cities

Grand Prairie, TX · Irving, TX · Fort Worth, TX · Dallas, TX