The city of Roma is set to receive more than $15 million to upgrade its water treatment plant.

"We don't consume tap water for a few years already," resident Saul Vasquez said.

For Vasquez, clean water has been a longstanding concern. He's lived in Roma almost his entire life.

"We've been depending on bottled water or the five-gallon jugs at the Water Mills," Vasquez said. "We probably consume about two or three of these five-gallon jugs per week."

The city's water treatment plant is 30 years old. Its aging pipes and system need an overhaul.

City leaders say help is on the way. More than $15 million is now headed to upgrades at the Roma Water Treatment Plant to address those concerns.

"Going to make improvements in that raw water intake so that water goes into the system and then it gets cleaned out," Assistant City Manager Alonso Ramirez said.

Ramirez says the city has worked for five years to secure funding to upgrade the water treatment plant.

"We submitted another application in 2025 that reflected the urgency, you know, from what we needed in 2021," Ramirez said.

The city says the plant is not operating at full capacity right now; it is only at 50 percent. That will change once the plant improvements are done.

"Have clean water, that they have the right pressure, that they have available water when they need it, at any time that they need it, and that the plant will have the capacity to face any challenge with regards to water production," Ramirez said.

The upgrades will allow the plant to treat more than 5 million gallons of water a day. The funding for the upgrades is coming from the Texas Water Development Board.

"It's going to come at no cost to the public, no cost to the public utility system," Ramirez said.

About 20,000 people in and around Roma are expected to benefit. Vasquez says the improvements could change his daily routine.

"I feel great about it, and I hope it's soon because maybe we can get rid of having to go buy water instead of just using the tap water," Vasquez said.

Construction for the project is scheduled to begin in July 2027 and wrap up by 2029.

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