Sand Branch, Texas and Its Decades-Long Water Crisis

The Sand Branch, Texas water crisis is the result of a small, unincorporated Black community sitting on a federally designated floodplain roughly 15 miles south of downtown Dallas, a combination that officials have repeatedly used to justify denying water and sewer infrastructure to the fewer than 100 households still living there. Founded in 1878 by formerly enslaved families from Louisiana, Sand Branch has never had municipal running water or a sewer system, and in 2026 its residents still rely on contaminated wells, septic tanks, and bottled water donated by churches and nonprofits.¹²

What Sand Branch Is and Why It Has No Water

In 1878, newly emancipated people from Louisiana pooled money to buy land in southeastern Dallas County and build a homestead meant to secure their descendants.² At its peak the community had about 400 residents. Today roughly 94 households remain, most of them elderly and on fixed incomes.

Sand Branch never incorporated, and no neighboring city has ever annexed it. That status is the hinge of the whole crisis. Without a municipality, there is no local government to levy taxes, run a utility, or receive many categories of state and federal infrastructure dollars. Dallas County handles roads and law enforcement for unincorporated areas but is legally restricted from operating full municipal water and sewer utilities.³ Sand Branch is the only unincorporated community in the county, and one of the few places in the United States where residents have never had piped water service.

What Residents Actually Drink and Use

Residents once drew water from private wells. Those wells are now contaminated, a finding confirmed by Environmental Protection Agency representatives who tested them and found the water unsafe to drink.⁴ The ground itself has been described as contaminated, which also complicates reliance on septic systems.¹

For drinking, cooking, and bathing, residents depend on jugs filled at relatives’ homes, water hauled back from work, and cases donated by outside groups.⁵ The Episcopal Church of the Ascension delivered nearly 3,000 cases over roughly two and a half years.⁶ The North Texas Food Bank has supplied drinking water intermittently, and Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church, led for years by Pastor Eugene Keahey, has been the main distribution hub. More recently, the Dallas Mavericks’ Mavs Take ACTION! program, the Mavs Foundation, Coca-Cola, C’s Corner Store and Thrift, and Juggernaut Relief have joined the weekly food and water runs.⁷

Why the Floodplain Keeps Blocking Infrastructure

The land Sand Branch sits on is designated a floodplain. Dallas County has said that designation makes securing federal infrastructure funding “near impossible,” and officials have also pointed to the small population as reason the spending is not justified.¹ An early-2000s push to build a grant-funded water system was shut down partly because officials concluded that half the community would be submerged in a major flood event.⁵

Advocates dispute the premise. The Water for Sand Branch Coalition has said the area has not actually flooded in 100 years and that engineering solutions exist if officials want to use them.¹ The gap between modeled flood risk and a century without a flood has driven the political stalemate for decades.

Decades of Buyouts Instead of Pipes

The record of failed water projects is long. In 1985, Commissioner John Wiley Price asked the City of Dallas to waive its policy against selling water to unincorporated communities without a wastewater system. The city refused, killing a Texas Community Development Program grant for a water line extension. A parallel plan to form a Fresh Water Supply District was estimated at $315,000, with total infrastructure costs projected around $800,000 in 1985 dollars.⁸ Later efforts to annex Sand Branch into Dallas also failed.⁵

Instead, the county has repeatedly offered buyouts. In 2005, homeowners were offered $350 per home to relocate, an amount attorney Mark McPherson later said would leave displaced residents with less than $500 after demolition costs. By 2016, Price was again floating a “voluntary” buyout without a formal price tag.⁹ The Dallas Weekly later reported Price’s standing offer at $5,000 per property, which the community has broadly rejected.¹⁰

Who Is Trying to Fix It Now

Two organizations are actively working on a permanent fix.

Attorney Mark McPherson began working with the community pro bono in 2016 and helped establish the Sandbranch Development and Water Supply Corporation (SDWSC), an entity approved to operate as a water supply corporation. He secured a $30,000 USDA Rural Development grant for engineering studies and convened meetings between residents and 11 agencies including the EPA, FEMA, and the USDA.¹¹ A larger $6.5 million grant was projected to begin disbursing in 2021, though the record does not confirm the money arrived.¹² In 2020, the Texas Water Development Board approved $450,000 for planning and feasibility work.³ SDWSC is still active, pursuing funding through the Texas Water Development Board’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund and the USDA, and in late 2025 issued requests for proposals for engineering, bond counsel, and financial advisory services.¹³

Real estate developer Derek Avery launched the Water for Sand Branch Coalition in 2024 with a plan to raise $12.5 million independently: $8 million for construction and $4.5 million for a community protection fund that would subsidize water bills and offset property tax increases for legacy residents. The coalition’s stated principle is “revitalization without gentrification,” reflecting a concern that bringing utilities could otherwise price residents off land their families have held for 150 years. Its long-term plan involves connecting Sand Branch to Dallas Water Utilities and pursuing a tax incremental financing zone to freeze property taxes, which the coalition says have surged 2,531 percent. As of early 2025, the coalition was awaiting a decision on an EPA grant application supported by the Mavs Foundation; the outcome has not been publicly reported.⁷

Separately, in 2023, Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins and U.S. Representative Jasmine Crockett began working together to draft a new plan and press federal agencies for funding. Jenkins said the project cost, once pegged at $6 million, had likely more than doubled.¹⁴ Crockett’s office helped secure more than $10.4 million in fiscal 2024 community projects including wastewater improvements in nearby municipalities, but no portion has been publicly tied to a completed Sand Branch project.³

The Political Stalemate

Sand Branch is in Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price’s District 3, and his position has shaped the county’s approach for decades. Price has favored voluntary relocation over infrastructure, telling the Dallas Morning News in 2024 that he did not consider spending millions on a community of fewer than 100 people a “smart investment.”¹⁵ As of February 2026, Price had not responded to a Spectrum News request for comment on the lack of services.¹

Derek Avery challenged Price in the March 2024 Democratic primary with the water crisis as a centerpiece of his campaign, carrying a sign on election day that read “Everyone deserves water.” Price won with nearly 80 percent of the vote.¹⁵

Residents and advocates have long framed the situation as environmental racism, arguing that predominantly white communities in floodplains receive water infrastructure while this predominantly Black freedmen’s town does not. Resident Sallie Mae Smith put it this way: “We’re too weak, too poor, and too Black for folks to care.” Dallas City Councilman Tennell Atkins and Texas State Representative Carl Sherman have both called publicly for the City of Dallas to supply the community.⁴

Where Things Stand in 2026

Construction of a permanent water and sewer system in Sand Branch has not begun.³ SDWSC continues to pursue state and federal funding and has solicited proposals for the engineering and financial work a project would require.¹³ The Water for Sand Branch Coalition continues raising money toward its $12.5 million goal and awaits a decision on its EPA grant.⁷ In the meantime, roughly 100 residents, descendants of the families who bought this land in 1878, keep hauling donated water home each week to a community 15 miles from downtown Dallas.

1
Spectrum News. Sand Branch Residents Continue Decades-Long Fight for Running Water
2
Movement Strategy Center. Honoring the Legacy of Sandbranch Yesterday and Today
3
Style Magazine. Sand Branch Water Crisis: Ongoing Efforts Highlight Need for Permanent Infrastructure
4
People’s World. After 150 Years, Black Residents of Sandbranch, Texas, Still Have No Running Water
5
KERA News. In One Corner of Dallas County, 100 People Live Without Running Water
6
Episcopal Church of the Ascension. Water for Sand Branch
7
Dallas Weekly. The Sand Branch Solution
8
D Magazine. The Lost Community of Sandbranch
9
FOX 4 News. Sandbranch Residents Want Services, Not Buyout From County
10
Dallas Weekly. Solutions for Sandbranch: Deconstructing Environmental Racism
11
KERA News. Meet the Attorney Working to Bring Running Water to a Dallas Community
12
Texas Environmental Law. Sandbranch Community
13
Sandbranch Development and Water Supply Corporation. SDWSC
14
NBC DFW. New Effort to Get Running Water in Former Dallas Freemans Town of Sand Branch
15
Dallas Morning News. 2 Dallas County Commissioners Lead by Wide Margins in Early Democratic Primary Votes