In February 2020, while Patti Flunker was busy gathering signatures to protest a WOWSC rate increase—an increase triggered largely because her neighborhood allies had sued the water company in a lawsuit that only secured a $70,000 judgment for the water company, after all parties spent $2 million —she was also working on something far more consequential. She was inviting representatives from Aqua Texas to come into Windermere Oaks and pitch the idea of buying our water system. As she said, “Would love to get you out to the community…“
Many residents remember that Saturday morning at the Pavilion. Aqua Texas showed up, gave their sales pitch, and made their case for why Windermere Oaks should surrender local control and hand our water system over to them. Patti facilitated it. She wanted it. She pushed for it.
Based on what Aqua Texas has since done to communities across Texas, that would have been a disaster for us. I opposed it then, and I oppose the same model now — the one where Patti has had us sell to Central States Water Resources.
I oppose it because what Aqua Texas has done to Texans is documented, measurable, and devastating. And I will prove it below.
But now, by selling WOWSC to Central States Water Resources (CSWR)—a private‑equity water corporation using the same strategy as Aqua Texas —Windermere Oaks has placed itself on the same track as those communities who now deeply regret their decision.
But don’t take my word for it. Look at what Texans are telling the Public Utility Commission right now:
Texans Are Sounding the Alarm — And Windermere Oaks Should Listen
In Fulshear, a homeowner used 21% less water but was billed 50% more. His letter to the PUC reads like a warning from the future: “I USED ALMOST 10,000 LESS GALLONS THIS YEAR AND WAS CHARGED 50% MORE.”
In Spicewood, a resident was billed $420 per month for wastewater—even though 96% of his water was used for irrigation and never entered the sewer system. He was paying sewer fees for water that soaked into the ground.
In Fort Worth, a family documented water‑rate tiers that jumped 66% to 92% in a single year. Their same‑usage bill increased 58% under Aqua Texas’s new structure.
Across Texas, HOAs and community associations are filing formal protests. They describe rate increases that have nothing to do with local costs—rate increases driven entirely by Aqua Texas’s statewide consolidation strategy. Here is just one letter from a small community association:
These communities are not paying for their own water systems anymore. They are paying for Aqua Texas’s entire portfolio, including salaries, attorneys, and executives in Pennsylvania.
This is the model Windermere Oaks just voted to join by selling to Central States Water Resources. By electing the current Board of Directors – or no one running against them, including myself — we are on course for these rates. Prepare yourself. Prepare your budgets.
The Aqua Texas Model: Buy Small Systems, Consolidate Them, Then Raise Rates Across the Board
How did they get so many systems under their control? They bought them, or worked with developers to own them. One by one. And once their lobbyists secured the “regionalization” legislation they needed, they went straight for their customers’ wallets.
Now those communities—whose developers sold their water systems to Aqua Texas years ago—are begging the PUC for relief. They are documenting bills that have doubled, tripled, even quadrupled. They are paying for water and wastewater services performed in other towns. They are paying for Aqua Texas’s corporate salaries in Pennsylvania. They are paying for infrastructure they will never see.
Their bills no longer reflect their community’s actual cost of service. They reflect Aqua Texas’s portfolio strategy.
If those communities could buy their systems back and run them themselves, they would. But now Windermere Oaks is in the middle of performing their mistake.
CSWR Uses the Same Model as Aqua Texas — And Patti Flunker Has Led Windermere Oaks Straight Into It
Now Patti Flunker has convinced the neighborhood to sell WOWSC to Central States Water Resources. CSWR is a private‑equity water corporation just like Aqua Texas. It uses the same strategy: buy systems, consolidate them, and eventually charge customers for the overhead of their PE bosses, attorneys, and executives in other states.
CSWR will not answer to Windermere Oaks homeowners. It will answer to investors.
Once WOWSC is rolled into CSWR’s Texas portfolio, our rates will no longer reflect our community’s actual costs. They will reflect CSWR’s statewide strategy.
That is how communities end up with $600 wastewater bills. That is how they end up with $800 wastewater bills. That is how they end up with $1,000 wastewater bills.
Just like Aqua Texas customers are experiencing today.
Windermere Oaks will not be the exception. We will be the next example.
And Where Is the WOWSC Board?
When will the WOWSC Board have its next meeting to consider these issues?
The last meeting was four months ago—in May—just one month after their Sunday‑morning Annual Meeting. Who schedules an Annual Members meeting on a Sunday morning? WOWSC under Patti Flunker. And who attended? Almost no one, I’d guess. I was probably at church.
But I digress.
The point is simple: The board has gone silent. The neighborhood voted to sell its most valuable asset and has yet to see a contract, a valuation, or a fair‑value discussion. It has yet to see a five-year plan, like what my Board would always provide.
The Future Is Already Written — Just Not By Us
Aqua Texas is working hard to make its current rate increase permanent. In PUC testimony, they openly stated they will soon return for yet another rate increase.
CSWR will do the same thing. Case after case. Increase after increase.
It is a shame this community is making this mistake.
Windermere Oaks did not just sell a water system. It sold its independence. It sold its ability to control its own costs. It sold its protection against private‑equity rate structures. It sold the one thing that kept us from becoming the next Fulshear, the next Spicewood, the next Fort Worth.
And someday soon, Windermere Oaks residents will be writing their own letters to the PUC—just like the ones above—except the bills will be from CSWR instead of Aqua Texas. And they won’t do any good. You’re now in the Matrix.