EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above misidentifies Peñitas City Manager Beto Garza as Beto Salinas. We apologize for the error.

Sonia Leal says she’s lived her whole life in Peñitas, where city drinking water has allowed the area to grow.

For the last two years, Leal and her neighbors in parts of western Hidalgo County say their tap water has been coming out to a trickle, or nothing at all.

“This has been more recent, not having enough pressure,” Leal said.

Peñitas City Manager Beto Garza says the city’s sewer plant might be a solution to the issue if it becomes the city's future source of drinking water.

“That's called the toilet to tap project,” Garza said, “People might be concerned [and ask] ‘am I going to drink dirty water,’ but it's not like that."

Garza says instead of dumping 300,000 gallons of treated sewer water every day into the Rio Grande, the water could be filtered even more for people to use.

Garza also believes the treated sewer water could solve a problem that's been hurting local economic growth.

“We currently have a couple of subdivisions that have been halted, and they are ready to roll and start construction,” Garza said. “But the water company cannot provide them water… so they’re paused for the moment."

Garza believes the residential developers would have to wait up to seven years until they could start building, possibly causing the city of Peñitas to lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars in new residential developments.

Residents like Leal say they are skeptical about using filtered sewer water.

“I'd probably buy bottled water,” Leal said.

The Toilet to Tap Water treatment plant is estimated to cost $12 million. A consulting firm is currently working on the environmental study for the project so it can be turned over to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality for approval.

The city plans on applying for federal grants and asking developers to pitch in to pay some of the costs, but that could take nearly four years.

Once funding and a contractor is selected, construction would take around nine months.

Watch the video above for the full story.