By GvilleTX Newsroom
Sherman utility crews were working Sunday evening, Aug. 23, to repair two active water leaks or main breaks at Preston Club and on Texoma Parkway near Taylor Street, and city officials said water pressure would be affected in those work areas. For Gainesville and Cooke County readers, the repairs are a nearby example of how dry North Texas soil and underground water systems can show up first as weak pressure at the tap.
In a public update, the City of Sherman tied the latest breaks to drought conditions that officials said were affecting soil and underground water pipes.
The Sunday work came eight days after Sherman said utility crews were fixing two active leaks that had lowered pressure in parts of the city. Sherman later reported that the Aug. 15 breaks had been repaired and pressure was expected to return to normal.
City utility pages tell Sherman residents that main breaks may be reported at any hour, including holidays. Sherman also says main breaks receive priority over ordinary leaks in the city’s response process.
For Cooke County readers, the bills that support this kind of work are close to home. Gainesville’s FY 2025-26 fee schedule, effective Oct. 1, 2025, lists a residential charge of about $24 for a 3/4-inch-or-smaller water meter and roughly $5 per 1,000 gallons. Sherman’s current rate schedule lists a base charge of about $27 for a 5/8-inch or 3/4-inch meter, with the first 1,500 gallons included.
Sherman’s FY 2026 budget says the city put in utility rate increases for residential and commercial accounts and added seven full-time positions in the Utility Fund. Its adopted capital plan lists about $57 million in Utility Services projects for FY 2026.
That capital plan includes relocating the Taylor Street water line from Texoma Parkway to Loy Lake Road because of TxDOT bridge work. It also includes expanding a water line across SH 289 to answer growth and usage nearby, along with construction of an 84-inch raw-water line from Lake Texoma to the water treatment plant.
State and federal surveys put local repair work inside a broader funding problem for water utilities. The EPA’s latest drinking-water infrastructure survey estimates national needs in the hundreds of billions over two decades, with pipe networks making up the largest share. The Texas Water Development Board says Texas’ drinking-water infrastructure need rose by more than one-third from the 2015 survey to the 2021 survey, ranking Texas second among states.
Drought.gov reported that more than four-fifths of Grayson County residents were affected by drought and that July 2026 was the county’s 58th driest July in a 132-year record. Those records do not assign a cause to every leak; in the Aug. 23 update, Sherman officials said dry conditions were affecting soil and underground pipes as crews handled the Preston Club and Texoma Parkway repairs.
_Editor's note: Everyone charged with a crime is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law._
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