For some, though, Texas remains a throwback to the Depression, when running water and indoor plumbing were scarcities in rural communities. Hard as it is to imagine, modern-day settlements known as colonias still sometimes lack those basics.

It all depends on whether the development has building codes and has received federal and state dollars for basics like sewage. And whether the local county has approved funds to lay pipe and the like.

Sad to say, but Environmental Protection Agency auditors found each of those problems in play in colonias along the border. The EPA inspector general discovered that about numerous residents in low-income settlements are still waiting for water and sewers. In fact, the report found, $78 million in EPA funds that Congress approved in the 1990s to improve colonias' water supplies have never been spent.

This situation is horrendous for the residents of the unincorporated colonias, where some still get their bath water out of a barrel in the front yard.

But this mess is also bad for the rest of the state. For example, diseases can crop up where there's no sewers. And there's no guarantee those diseases won't spread across the state.

The EPA and the Texas Water Development Board are working on a schedule to spend all the remaining funds before 2010. The situation should never have gotten to this point, but the agreement's an improvement. Now, the two sides need to execute their plan so Texans don't have to live like it's the Depression all over again.