CAMERON PARK CONTINUES TO BEDEVIL OFFICEHOLDERS

By Juan Montoya

It's an issue that has hung around the neck of every Cameron County Pct. 2 commissioner like an albatross since before Carlos Cascos filled that position. 

Cascos was saddled with the illegal subdivision when the streets were still rutted with mud, outhouses were the norm, rodent-infested and weed-filled ditches lined what passed as roads, and the resaca to the rear of the colonia served as the community cesspool and dumpsite.
Before Cascos, commissioner Mike Cortinas was content to let matters stand as they were since the county did not accept the subdivision, but came about as a result of City of Brownsville inaction in processing the plat application.
This kind of "benign neglect" dominated the county and city's attitude toward the colonia and it showed.
When Cascos came on board after defeating Cortinas, the rest of the county commissioners decided to forego their agreement to take turns accepting state grants and allow Cascos to receive the funds out of rotation so that improvements could come quicker to the colonia.
Still, even if the rest of the commissioners had agreed to bypass the grant rotation for all of Cascos' four-year term, it would not have been enough to address the needs of the subdivision.
Commissioners came and commissioners went and after Cascos, John Wood, then Ernie Hernandez inherited the mess. The latest officeholder facing this conundrum is commissioner Alex Dominguez.
In a sense, Dominguez is fortunate in that most of the major infrastructure (storm drains, gutters, paved roads, some street lighting, etc) has already been done by those before him.
But the problem with the trash and hazardous-material laden resaca contaminating the environment and the nearby irrigation waterways remains. Aside from the basic responsibility of the colonia dwellers for the trash that is dumped in the stagnant resaca, other players have to shoulder the responsibility to address the problesm.
In an interview with a local broadcaster, Dominguez said the residents should shoulder the load of paying the cost for the cleanup. But if one looks at it closely, it is asking the current dwellers to clean up for decades of dumping in that waterway.
The problems began, longtime colonia dwellers said, when years ago a local developer (Renato Cardenas) plugged the channel that connected the resaca behind the colonia to the resaca system that curves around it and makes its way around the city. With that avenue for its flow symied, the formerly flowing resaca tunred into what it is today; a stagnant cesspool of debris, trash, construction refuse, carcasses of dead animals and fish and a haven for rodents and disease-bearing mosquitoes.
"I've seen rats the size of opposums coming out of that resaca," said Mirta Boucourt, a resident who has lived there for more than 30 years. "It's grown beyond just a colonia problem. It has become a public health hazard issue and the city, state and the irrigation districts have done their best to ignore the problem. This isn't going away."
Although Boucourt agrees with Dominguez that residents should bear responsibility for dumping trash there, she disagrees that it's not a county problesm.
"Look at the work they're doing right now on street drainage," she said pointing out the gutters leading to the resacae that are clogged with garbage and organic material. "Where do you think the street pipes leading to the resaca are going to dump the water? Of course the county has a respponsibility to clean it up. After all, the water runoff that will be carried to the resaca by the pipes are being laid there by county workers."
Ideally, she said, a solution would be to connect the stagnant resaca to the main drain ditch that makes its way toward the Port of Brownsville and away from the city's resacas instead of letting it drain into the Irrigation District 1 waterway.
There is another danger to the public besides rodents and disase-bearing pests, residents say. When the water level rises in the resaca after a couple of inches of rain, the county has knocked over a dirt berm that allows the rising water to drain into the nearby irrigation waterway that is used by local farmers to give their livestock water and citrus farmers to irrigate their crops. There is no telling, Boucourt said, what heavy meetals or other toxic substances might contaminate the waterway as a result.
She said the residents' pleas to local state representatives and even complaints to the Texas Water Quality Board have gone unheeded.
"There are citrus orchards down there that use the water for irrigation and some farmers let their cows drink water from there," she said. "There is no telling whether there is mercury, asbestos from cosntruction materials dumped in there in the past, or even acid from old batteries that people threw in there. I hate to think that people will consume something that may have been contaminated with whatever is in that water."
Precinct administrative assistant Zeke Silva said that the county had tried to have a cleanup of the resaca but found it difficult to get access to the trash that is visible from the other side of the resaca.
"We have approached everybody, the city, the irrigation, the state, and they all say they don't have the authority to do this," he said. "It's going to take a combined effort to address this."
In the meantime, residents say that the Texas Department of Transportation whose drains feed the stagnant pool behind the resca from Paredes Line and Alton Gloor, the county whose street drains feed it, and the city, which surrounds the entire subdivision have all  been hesitant to get their hands dirty to address the issue to move forward.
"It's no use pointing fingers when the longer you do that the threat to the public safety continues to grow," said Boucourt. "Someone needs to take the lead on this. The residents are ready to pitch in and do whatever may be necessary to fix this. Whatever one may think, the need to fix this is not going to go away. It's desperately needed."
Dominguez said the county has no authority over the resaca, but only a responsibility to keep the water flowing.
“They don't have an easement, so (we) don't have any right to step on the property to effect any kind of clean up,” Dominguez said.

“It's not an easy issue to solve, but it's one that we're going to have to work together,” he said.
Boucourt, who has seen commissioners come and commissioners go and the problem remain, said time and the residents' patience – unlike the water in the rescaa – is running out.
"The candidates made a lot of promises," she said. "Now is the time to see what they can deliver."