August 21, 2023 – For the past four weeks, the Clovis Cemetery’s grounds and maintenance crews have been working without running well-water, as the water source that the cemetery relies on finally dried up.
“We didn’t have any water…We had some perforations in the piping where they had to go in and patch it,” says Stacie Caldwell, District Manager for the Clovis Cemetery.
Caldwell explained that for the past four weeks, the cemetery has been trying to deal with this issue of having no running water at their site, while also having to usher guests and complaints of why grass has been dying, or the sudden appearance of certain “dirt patches” throughout the cemetery.
“Our bathrooms were obviously not working because we didn’t have water. We also rented a water truck and we were filling that water truck so that we could keep the trees, the shrubbery, and the flowers alive.”
Caldwell explained that when it came to the grass there was just too much grass throughout the cemetery to be able to water it all with the small amount of water resources they were dealing with in the past four weeks.
“We really couldn’t do much about the grass because it just took too much water.”
The current dried up well was dug about another hundred feet down, where water was found, giving the cemetery a new source of water.
Moving forward, the plan for the Clovis Cemetery relies on the new depth of their current well, which Caldwell estimates should give them about fifteen more years of water use.
“If we can get fifteen more years out of this well and it goes dry, we will have to dig another well in the southwest corner [of the cemetery].” Caldwell explained that water was found in that area as well as underneath their current well.
Water operations should resume as quickly as August 21st, nearly four weeks after water was not available at the Clovis Cemetery.
Criticism including dead grass and open dirt patches should be curbed for the time being as maintenance crews will work diligently to resolve the matter.
“We have a plan B if something like this happens again, but really, [the water missing] was all that happened…With the heat that we’ve had, the grass did turn yellow real quick. But it will come back, and we’ll plug the areas that need to be done. Give it a couple of weeks and the grass will be nice and green again.”