Fort Garland is making plans to reinstate water sales to Costilla County residents who live outside the town limits, 45 days after cutting off water without warning to people in the high-desert hills of the San Luis Valley.

The town’s water board, after pleas from rural residents and state officials, has reversed course and decided unanimously to bring back water sales for county residents who for years have filled up tanks in Fort Garland and hauled the water back to their underground cisterns.

Water access for county residents could resume as soon as next week, ending a month and a half of anxiety as people have driven into town to take showers at the community center and counted their toilet flushes.

One member of the five-person water district board that voted Aug. 1 to end what a

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