Reprint from the Progress Times - October 3, 2008
©Progress Times 2008 - All Rights Reserved

 

Water Worries

 

By Ricky Reynoso

While much of the county’s drainage focus has been on the levee rehabilitation, there are still pressing drainage issues besides the levees. Various cities, including the San Carlos area, are barely getting a handle on the flooding from Hurricane Dolly.

As recently as September 2, the Hidalgo County Drainage District #1 board of directors received an assessment of the cost to fix major drainage issues. Drainage District Director Godfrey Garza said each precinct was asked which areas needed to be priorities. To address the needs of Precinct 1 would cost $14 million, $12 million for Precinct 2, $10.8 million for Precinct 3, and $36 million in Precinct 4.

Mission resident and Mission Planning and Zoning Board Member Ned Sheats said the drainage district should be focusing its efforts on drainage problems within the county instead of just the levee projects. As a member of the Country Estates Home Owners Association, he voiced his concerns at a Commissioners’ Court meeting on September 16.

“As Dolly and additional recent rains have shown, the major threat is not from the Rio Grande but from poor planning and inadequate drainage behind the levees,” Sheats said. “These are problems which must be solved before we worry about keeping the Rio Grande behind its levees.”

One of the problems that Sheats noticed was with a large ditch known as the Mission Lateral, which drains area rainfall in north Mission and runs behind Country Estates. During an August 18 thunderstorm, the water level rose so quickly that it was only three feet from overflowing onto the adjacent land and into the neighborhood.

While walking just a few feet from his back yard to the Mission Lateral, Sheats said much of the land gets saturated quickly during a heavy rain, as the area was previously used primarily for agriculture, and the drainage system was designed — many years ago — for crop lands, not for heavily urbanized used.

When open fields, that normally absorb much of the rainfall, are replaced with homes, driveways and streets, an enormous amount of water runs off, seeking a place to drain. This can cause flooding in subdivisions.

“Even with just that water we had a few garages that were flooded from the rain,” Sheats said. “So imagine if the Mission Lateral had overflowed.”

The City of Mission, for its part, installed a drain in the area to help alleviate flooding issues. Sheats acknowledges that the city did the best it could to help.

“Once the water level gets to a certain pipe, it’ll just flow back up into the street grate,” Sheats said. “I appreciate the help; they’re trying to do the best they can with the resources they have.”

City of Mission Planning Director Sergio Zavala said that although the city has tried to help, it is ultimately up to the drainage district to address the issues.

“The drainage district is in charge of maintaining and overseeing the Mission Lateral,” Zavala said. “If there’s an obstructed flow on all the neighborhoods drain at the same time, then all the adjacent subdivisions are going to be affected. We do what we can but ultimately it’s the county’s responsibility.”

Zavala said part of the problem lies with the age of the drainage system which was originally designed in 1979 at a time where much of the area was farmland. As the Valley grew, the drainage needs have increased.

Though the city has helped with the Mission Lateral, City Engineer Roberto Salinas said it is just one problem of many that the city has to deal with due to the age of the drainage system.

“We have the downtown area that gets flooded easily,” Salinas said. “We try to work around it, but we can only do so much with the system itself as it exists right now.”

Moritorium on construction?

Sheats said the only other alternative would be to place a temporary moratorium on new developments until the drainage needs could be addressed.

“Obviously we wouldn’t want to do that because you want your city to grow,” Sheats said. “But we can’t wait for any five-year study. Additional development would only increase the risk of flooding existing homes. This moratorium must remain in effect until we can prove that the system can provide protection from at least a 10-year storm.”

Whether or not the Mission Lateral can handle that type of heavy rain remains to be seen. The drainage district is currently conducting a five-year study that will monitor storm waters in Hidalgo County and their impact on adjacent counties.

“How can the commissioners say they’ll make a recommendation on what they’re going to do after five years,” Sheats asked. “They’re basically telling us, ‘you’re going to be under water possibly’.”